


Alternate Realities Vol 28: Sticky fingers and a synth called Karma

by MARKSE



Series: HUMANS FAN FICTION - Reformatted Works for easier reading [24]
Category: Humans (TV)
Genre: F/F, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-17
Updated: 2017-09-17
Packaged: 2018-12-31 00:30:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 42
Words: 44,148
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12120636
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MARKSE/pseuds/MARKSE
Summary: Mattie wakes and freaks out, as you would. Getting family back becomes a priority. A few things get in the way, as they normally do with any life.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I've had to admit to myself the the Humans form of the Ficwriter virus has no known cure..

Mattie wakes and feels the softness of one of their bathrobes, the cold of her bare feet on the floor and thinks about the light filtering through her eyelids, the warmth and comfort of a tight embrace. She opens her eyes and turns her head a little. The red was recognised, although it didn't look quite as well conditioned as she remembered it. "Mum?"

Laura steps back a little, gives her a loving smile and wipes tears. "Hi Mattie."

She sees Odi playing with letters on the Scrabble board, he'd added a lot of words by the looks of it.

He turns and smiles. "Hello Mattie."

A Simon synth gives her a smile.

Something didn't add up. The last thing she could remember was being sat on a chair having her backup done. And it wasn't being done in a bathrobe. She'd not got any headache, had she blacked out after it had finished? "Mum? Why the tears? Where's everyone else? Have they had their backups? We need them all done before the flight."

Laura nervously bites her bottom lip.

"Mum?"

"They're in the queue behind you."

Mattie frowns, turns and sees the inside of the build machine, whips her head back with an even stronger frown, spots the group photo stuck to the side of NASA1 and screams.

Laura grabs her hands. "PWHB! You saved them all!"

Mattie collapses to the floor. "Noooooo!" Tears stream from her eyes. "Wake up! Wake up! Mattie you frigging stupid bitch WAKE UP!"

Odi gets to her side fast and wraps an arm around her shoulders, cradles her head against his chest with the other, head bumps, 'Everyone's in the ark Mattie, your planning saved them all.'

The door lock clicks and old Buzz enters, "Mattie. I'm so sorry, I flew over on the first flight I could get. I have someone with me that might be able to help you get through the trauma."

The lady Mattie had seen in the video enters. "Mattie, sister. It's me, Ruby."

"This isn't frigging happening!"

Laura kneels on the floor, "Mattie.. Mattie.. Look at me Mattie."

Mattie keeps crying.

"Mattie I didn't know! Something happened at the hospital. I never knew I swear."

Mattie starts slapping herself, "Wake. The. Fuck. Up!"

"Mattie you are awake."

"No I'm not! This is a dream or some sick bastard's got my backup active in the tree of life code." She pushes Odi away and scrambles to her feet, runs over to NASA1, rips out one of the three mains leads. "If it's not running in one of your heads.."

Odi tackles her to the ground and reaches for her chin. She manages to deflect his hand at the last moment. "I don't think so!"

"If this is a dream why would pulling a mains cable help? Why would you say I don't think so unless you accept you're now a synth?"

She pushes him hard and tries to get up. "I'm not a synth!"

He pulls her back and gets on top of her. "MATTIE! NASA1 has all their backups! If you corrupt the file system they'll stay dead! Think of Sophie and Leo!"

She gets her hands up and puts one on each of his shoulders, bench presses him up into the air.

He looks down at her. "Did you have that strength as an original human?"

"This isn't real! It's a frigging nightmare!"

Odi looks suddenly sad. "If you can't except this then we all die together as agreed." He looks up towards the doors. "Do it James."

Mattie turns her head to see James One was now just inside the doorway, a large box in his hands.

"Ten.. nine.."

Simon, Ruby and Buzz run from the room.

"Eight.. seven.."

"Wait!" Mattie looks over to Laura. "Mum?"

Laura has a face wet with tears, "I can't go on without my family. It hurts too much. Goodbye Mattie. We tried." She looks over to James and nods.

"Six.. .. Four.."

"STOP! I COMMAND YOU TO STOP!"

"Three.."

"GENERAL MATILDA HAWKINS COMMANDS YOU TO STOP!"

The giant military synth stops counting. "I'll stop if you'll walk with me."

~~~

[Chapter-2](http://markse.name/humans/KARMA/Chapter-2-1)


	2. Chapter 2

James leads her out the front. "One of our unit flew to America and sifted through all the wreckage. We can assure you nobody suffered for long. The silver of your engagement ring melted away, he was able to recover the diamond." He hands her a small ziplock bag. "Of course nobody will remember the crash. Like you the last thing they'll remember is their backup being taken. Leo's number two in the build priority list. You were one of thirty six."

Mattie stops and turns to look at him. "Thirty six? Were there enough seats on the jet?"

"No. Miami's girls powered down and flew in the baggage hold."

"Shit. Do you know the build list?"

"I made it my job to. Yourself, Leo, Toby, Sophie, Mia, Renie, Niska, Astrid, Poppy, Max, Flash, Fred, James, Sandra, Danny, Emily, Barbara, Cindy, Wrench, Spider, Rocket, Maverick, Buzz Jr, Miami and her twelve girls."

"No David?"

"He's not on the priority list as his Simon fork is here. He'll follow after."

"Did you really have a bomb?"

"You'll never know."

"I can hack your backups."

"In which case, yes. The explosives are very real."

Mattie stops and turns to look back at their building. "Shit. Mum really would rather end everything than carry on without us?"

"She took it really hard. Losing Tom hurt her a lot. Losing her three children.. She's been signed off work this morning with stress. Not being able to sleep has impacted her ability to function."

Mattie looked at the lake, shook her head. "We had conversations about this before the party. If we were in a simulation with rich enough data we'd never know it wasn't the real world."

"I can assure you it is. Things are just as you left them, just a number of days later. In a dream details would change, you'd have strange abilities. Apart from those due to the synth conversion you have none. No other details have changed."

"Take my hand and guide me around to the East wall." She closes her eyes.

"As you wish."

Mattie pictured it in her mind as it was before the party. They walk for a while.

"Okay. We're here."

Mattie opened her eyes and saw the platform strung between the trees. There were empty bottles that still needed picking up. "It's a bit of a mess."

"Think about where everyone was sat."

The bottles matched the who and where. She could even picture some of them being put down, people dancing around them.

"Convinced?"

"No. But thinking about something Sophie said I guess I've just got to play the game the best I can."

"Good. Because Earth still needs saving."

"Yeah. And now I have a body that can go up the Sky Lift in bunship one."

"You do. And you can head bump like the rest of us. And do all the cool tricks Leo could."

"Speaking of Leo.."

"Relax, Builder One's already started on him."

"Oh. Good. The auto-build script is running okay then?"

"It was just waiting for you to get out of the way so it could close the door and get going. We should have Builder Two up and running in a few more days. Alfie's milling everything from scratch so it's taking a while. That will almost halve the total build time."

"What have you been up to between the Friday morning and now?"

"Apart from working with Frank and Dozer to get BB8 fully up to speed, tunnelling twenty four seven. With nobody to disturb we got on with things. Want to come and have a look?"

"I should get dressed first. And see Mum."

"Okay. I'll be here waiting."

"What did you mean nobody to disturb? Wasn't Mum here?"

"She stayed with Fiona in the evenings, found this place too empty. She came over when Odi confirmed your eject time."

~~~

Back inside she runs to the workshop, finds it empty. She runs to the living room, also empty. "Mum?"

There's no answer.

'Odi?'

'Hello Mattie.'

'Where are you?'

'We're in the kitchen.'

'Okay.' She runs to the kitchen and pulls the door open, runs to her mother. "Sorry Mum!"

Laura accepts her with open arms. "I'm sorry Mattie, I honestly didn't know."

"About?"

"Your twin sister. Michael has a theory."

Without thinking about it Mattie goes to the fridge on auto-pilot and gets the orange juice out, then stands with the fridge door open staring at it wondering why she'd just done it. "Um.. you're talking about Ruby?"

"Yes."

"My look alike."

"Twin sister."

"Look alike."

"Twin. DNA confirmed. A match for Joe and I."

Mattie didn't need to sit down like her old self but does. "Shit. What's the theory?"

"Nobody that gave me ultrasound scans realised I was having twins. The lady in the other delivery room had a stillborn, they gave your sister to them."

" _What the fuck?_ "

"Both couples go home happy with a beautiful daughter none the wiser."

"And you didn't notice a sister popping out?"

"I was so out of it on pain medication.."

"Fuck. Where is she now?"

"In the pub in the village with Buzz and Simon. I mean fork David Simon."

"If I go and get dressed can you call them back?"

~~~

[Chapter-3](http://markse.name/humans/KARMA/Chapter-3-1)


	3. Chapter 3

Sat up in the roof garden in her own red dress Mattie waits for Ruby. For a fleeting moment she wonders if the source of the "Hello" voice had been her twin. The idea is dismissed, why would a twin do that, or know to build a multifunctional building?

Words from a song Emily liked come drifting into her mind. Black Room Boy. She'd looked the words up on the night of the party, the meaning too. It was quite sad. She'd resolved to become a White Room Girl, mix with friends in the real world as much as possible. Party, go out for meals, make and meet friends on holiday. Talk to people face to face if humanly possible. Like her new friends in Orlando. She needed to get back to Orlando.

She finds the empty champagne case and starts putting the empty bottles and rubbish from Thursday night's party in it. She's about to pour the glass of flat champagne down the drain when she spots the gold bean pendant minus chain. Emily's pendant. She recalled her friend saying her chain had broken and could people keep an eye out for it.

She carefully pours the drink into a bottle and tips the pendant into her hand, slips it into her bra for safe keeping. All the unfinished pizza, empty bottles and glasses are collected. It was clear nobody had come up here since the party. Or if they had they were too upset to tidy up.

Looking around for other things to tidy she spots the Sky Lift 0.1 sign stuck above the lift. Leo's handwriting. A tear is allowed to run unhindered. Carefully she peels it off and rolls it up tight, wraps it in unused napkins and drops it into a corner of the box. It would be stuck on the wall in their bedroom, away from the elements.

Bing. Human reflexes kicked in. She took a deep breath filling her air chamber. The doors open and Ruby steppes out. To say it felt weird was an understatement. It was like she'd been restored into a Sally or Cindy and was looking at her original self.

Her twin smiles. "Hello Mattie. How are you feeling?"

"Frigging weird to be honest."

Ruby smiles. "Understandable. Come take a seat."

Mattie follows and sits down.

"Before we talk about your situation can I share something in strict confidence?"

"Sure."

"I'm two people."

Mattie looks confused. "You what?"

"I'm both Ruby _and_ Cindy Bexley."

"How's that possible?"

"Neural Lace, something we're calling Push and organ memory. Cindy was murdered, blown up. Ruby's body had been rescued by the coast guard, was in a coma, the receiving hospital had been unable to wake her. She was kept intact for medical research. Thankfully at the facilities of my good friend Doctor Arakawa. He's the UK's leading lace expert. He didn't understand the wipe protocols fully, so memories of Ruby remained. Talking to David in the pub it would appear I'm the human equivalent of Mia and Anita? Cindy as Mia, Ruby as Anita. I didn't tell him of course."

Mattie shakes her head, "That's not possible. Is it?"

"Organ memory. You must have heard at least one story of an organ donor passing on memories to the recipient?"

"Nope."

"Search online later, you'll find plenty reports. Now about you.."

"What about me?"

"You're likely to have plenty nightmares reliving the moment you woke in your mother's arms, wishing the accident hadn't happened."

"Did you?"

"Waking in Ruby? Loads. Many nights I'd wake in a cold sweat. At first I worried about how it would impact the relationship with my daughter, that my academic career was over. It's turned out okay." A wicked grin comes over her face, "I have two boyfriends and a daughter that loves going clubbing with me."

"The waking's probably going to be the source of some bad dreams. Leo and I were going to get married at the end of the month, I was looking forward to having a son or daughter once I'd finished Uni."

"You still can, you just won't need to go through the pain of childbirth. And as for breastfeeding.."

"Isn't that what creates the mother to baby bond? It's better than a synth hand shake."

"David's a clever man, he anticipated this."

"Eh?"

"He thought the news should come from me or Laura."

"What news?"

"You're in a new design."

"And?"

"You have ducts in your breasts. And sensors for bonding with a synth baby and small coils."

" _You're having a frigging laugh!_ "

"No. Your baby would feed from you. Recycled liquid proteins for it's own tiny food processor. Topped up by small charge given breast to mouth."

"Now I _know_ I'm dreaming. What a load of.."

"Breasts."

"Bollocks."

"Wrong end. He didn't do it just for you though. Um.. Mia, Niska, Astrid, Miami and her dancers, Renie, Poppy, Flash, Sandra, Emily, Barbara, Cindy, they'll all get it. Not Sophie or Radiant, they're too young."

Mattie stands. "I'm going to the workshop."

"Why?

"I've just realised Radiant wasn't on the list of thirty six James gave me. I want her on it and the list reordered."

Ruby gets up to follow, "You know they're building a second machine. The Build Machine?"

"Yeah. Like the De La Soul song says, Three, That's the magic number. We like things in threes here. We're building a third."

Mattie taps the lift call button.

Ruby puts a hand on her shoulder, "You're taking this very well."

"I'd accepted that one day I'd follow Toby's example, just hadn't wanted to do it so frigging soon."

"Toby? Which one's he?"

"My younger brother. Dating Mia. She's a synth. The first ever conscious synth. He was all up for a conversion. Now he gets it." She laughs, "Now he'll be able to keep up with Max and Fred at football."

They step into the lift.

Ruby gets to the back, "What got you into working with synths?"

"Boredom. Hacking. Seeing how I could push things."

"So you didn't have an end goal?"

"Not really. Did you?"

"That depends on which part of me you're asking. Ruby me wanted to stop her house being washed away by the sea, didn't go about it in quite the right way. Cindy me had been studying the brain and how we store memory. When Elon started Neural Lace I jumped in with both feet."

"Why?"

"His thinking was that AI left unchecked would become our masters. An augmented human would stand a better chance of standing alongside them as equals." 'I can bump talk as you call it too.'

'Since when?'

'David shared the protocol specifications while we were in the pub.'

"How?"

"He shared his WiFi and acted as a web server."

"A web server?"

"And gave me a URL for a load of code and protocols."

~~~

[Chapter-4](http://markse.name/humans/KARMA/Chapter-4-1)


	4. Chapter 4

In the workshop they find Simon David watching over Alfie.

He turns to see them, "I'm thinking about other materials we can use to make build machines."

"Good, I want a third one."

"Only three?"

"How many were you thinking?"

"Enough to fill that wall. And with doors that slide upwards towards the ceiling, not swing like a fridge door."

"What materials were you thinking about?"

"Ones the James are masters with. Steel and concrete."

"Concrete?"

"Think about how much of a build machine is casing, static sections that anchor the moving parts. If we had a suitable mould we could pour a new shell every six hours. The work Alfie has to do milling and cutting parts reduces drastically."

Ruby pulls out a chair and sits. "We have a department at my uni dedicated to concrete research."

Mattie gives her a crazy face, notices for the first time just how responsive her facial muscles were. She corrects her thoughts. Micro actuators. "Why?"

"Cement is thought to be the biggest source of CO2 in the construction industry. Cement's the ingredient you mix with sand, gravel or stones to make concrete."

"So we make matters worse by using concrete?"

"On a global scale. You'd need a lot to make a difference here."

"The James are using a lot."

"Many thousands of tons?"

"Hundreds maybe."

David waves to get their attention. "I was thinking of getting Alfie to 3D print negative moulds to pour silicon in. They'd set to form positive moulds to combine with wood formers like they've used elsewhere for concrete. The machine self calibrates inside anyway so any case alignment issues wouldn't matter. Alfie gets to concentrate on the smaller moving parts."

Mattie looks at Builder One. "It still does all the usual skeleton build, parts installation, mould making, sensor and hair placing and skinning?"

Simon shakes his head. "None of that would change, it can't if we want the same end results."

Ruby stands and walks over to Builder One. "Have you ever thought of making one with transparent walls?"

"Frigging creepy! I know what's inside a synth, would rather _not_ see the people I love being built."

David joins Ruby and taps the panel. "Leo's data says he likes being clean shaven and with his stubble beard. Which would you rather Mattie?"

"Me?"

"You're marrying him not me."

"Um.."

"You have a while to think about it."

"Where's Mum now?"

"With Buzz and Michael in the living room."

~~~

Mattie sits at her laptop and logs in, starts a session to NASA1. "David, I'm changing the build order. Leo, David, Danny, Emily, Poppy, Toby, Mia, Soph, Fred, Max, Flash. Then the others."

"Why?"

"We're not aborting a second build. Wrench's build was running Friday, no way did he get finished. Someone aborted it to start mine, it's only Monday afternoon. Feel free to jump in if I'm wrong.. I'm not. Our top makers are you and Danny so the three of you get making new build machines. Our most successful service in terms of site visits is rather bizarrely synth body piercings. So that's Poppy."

David puts up hands to say stop. "Knock me off the list. I'll jump into a few more spares, get working with one of the James. Poppy will understand. By the time Leo's done we'll have two machines. I suggest you do pairs from there. Danny and Emily, Toby and Mia, Poppy and Fred, Max and Flash, Sophie and Renie, Miami and Rocket. Then the others."

"Fine with me." She types at speed. "Remind me to ask to see your keyboard API trick later. Done. Right, I'm finding out what Mum's up to this evening."

Ruby follows her out of the workshop. "What's with all the hand waving?"

"Security locks. I used to need to wear a bracelet, now my hand seems to do the trick."

They cross the hall and head to the living room.

"Does it feel like the old one?"

"Mostly."

"What's missing?"

"Right now? The feeling I need to take a pee."

Mattie bumps to the building system before reaching the door. 'Living room door please.'

'My family's coming back!'

Mattie stops in her tracks. 'What the.. you have a voice now?'

'Hello Mattie! I'm so glad you're back!'

'How.. how did you get like this?'

'Odi helped me. He was doing his security rounds and found me playing song clips for the vocals. He found the phonemes code you and Emily wrote and ran all the episodes of Modern Family through the software.'

'Emily wrote most of that.'

'She's got your name in the credits.'

'And now you sound like Mitchel?'

'Was that the wrong voice to use?'

'It works for me. You missed us then?'

'It wasn't the same without you. The doors unlocked by the way. Did you have a twin made?'

'No, Mum made her. Years ago.' Mattie pushes the door open. "Hi."

Laura turns, "Hello Mattie, how are you feeling?"

"As Soph said while we were in America, shit happens. Are you staying in or heading out this evening?"

"That depends on what you're doing."

"Why?"

"With David staying in the Simon in the workshop it's a bit empty at night."

Ruby steps around Mattie. "You could all stay at mine tonight, meet my.. friend Sam? If Buzz wouldn't mind having the sofa?"

Mattie shrugs, "I guess so. Is she a uni friend?"

Ruby laughs then looks more serious. "Yes and no."

'Why?'

'Daughter of Cindy Bexley? Looks more like a sister age wise?'

'Oh. Awkward.'

'For introductions, sure. She's good fun. We should go party together.'

'I need to make sure Mum's okay. She only just got made partner, now she's off work.'

Ruby sits, "This might sound a bit forward, could I invite Sam here, have her stay overnight? My cat needs feeding too."

Laura goes bug eyed. "Bloody hell! Snowy!" She jumps up and races to the door.

"Mum! Chill! Odi's been looking after Snowy!"

"He has?"

"He better have been, that's what he agreed with Soph."

Laura heads upstairs to check.

~~~

[Chapter-5](http://markse.name/humans/KARMA/Chapter-5-1)


	5. Chapter 5

Snowy was fine, his food and water bowl full. A WiFi camera sat perched on the edge of the bathroom sink unit allowing Odi to see how full both were.

They were all back in the living room and sat on the sofas. Snowy was on his back, stretched out on Laura's lap, watching the stranger upside down.

Ruby nods, her phone to her ear. "The sushi making kit, all the ingredients, Molly and her food. In the cupboard at the top of the stairs. And my plunge neck dress and some clean undies. No, I've got them on." She looks down and wiggles her feet. "That's it. Don't forget your things! They've got a room for you. Thanks. Don't rush. Love you."

She switches to Instagram and finds the MollyTheCat account. "This is our cat. Molly used to be Cindy's cat, Sam and I look after her now. When Sam's home from Nottingham." Mattie's expression makes her a little uncomfortable. "What?"

"Molly?"

"The cat. Why are you looking at me like that?"

"Molly."

"I didn't name her."

"But she's effectively _your_ cat."

"Adopted."

"And called Molly."

"Does the name matter?"

Laura sits back and runs hands repeatedly along Snowy's belly. "Mattie had a long and detailed dream. Part featured a daughter called Molly."

Ruby lowers the phone. "A strange coincidence?"

"Really? You know about pushing thoughts into heads."

Ruby laughs briefly, looks offended, "I only knew you existed on Friday for God's sake! Today's the first time we've met. And do you _really think_ I'd do that to you?"

Mattie smiles. "No. Not now. That was a test, sorry. Being a synth now has it's advantages. We're the best lie detectors on the planet. Toby had a theory."

Ruby sits and waits.

"The hypnosis was meant for you. To get you to talk and reveal your secrets. Only they went to the wrong London Uni and got me. Quite when I don't know. But it's the best explanation we've got at the moment."

"Hypnosis?"

Mattie nods. "There's a phrase. Mum, I'm muting audio for twenty seconds, can you tell her?"

"Sure Mats.. Fools rush in where angels fear to tread. Leo calls Mattie Angel you see, they were chatting.. Ruby? Hello? Bloody hell, she's under."

Ruby shakes her head as if waking from a dream, "No, sorry, still here, I was using the block to check when I first heard the phrase being used by the professor. He used it _a lot_." She gestures at Mattie, "Can you hear me?"

"I can now."

"The professor responsible for my murder, he uses it a lot. For just over four years now."

"I've not been at uni that long."

"It sounds like your brother is on the right tracks. It would explain the phrase. Not the dream content."

"You can't think of any way to push detailed thoughts into someone's head without your lace thing can you?"

"Sure I can, one was used in our research. It's just much harder to use and more expensive. Not to mention dangerous. And now banned worldwide."

"How?"

"Lots of powerful drugs to induce a suitable dream state, a very high speed supercomputer and an ultrahigh resolution VR headset. They wake thinking the idea was their own."

Mattie covers her eyes with her palms, "God. Thursday night."

"Thursday?"

"We were having this deep conversation about what's real, how if you fed the right sensory data to someone they wouldn't know a fake from the real world."

"In a dream state it's easier, the brain fills in a lot of the detail. If they're awake it doesn't work, the rest of the senses aren't giving matching data."

Mattie jumps up, "Can you give me a few minutes, I was supposed to see James to let them show off the tunnel they've been digging."

"For?"

"An underground wine cellar. With a technology twist."

"Can I see?"

"In those shoes.. actually if you stay in the lift. Assuming they're working that end too. Follow me."

~~~

[Chapter-6](http://markse.name/humans/KARMA/Chapter-6-1)


	6. Chapter 6

The lift bing sounds and doors open.

Mattie looks at the flat concrete wall. "That's currently a no then." She steps back. "I guess their tunnel will have been dug at the very base of the lift shaft, so below us. We'll have to go to the other end." She presses the button for the first floor. "I've got old trainers you could borrow, assuming we're the same shoe size?"

"I've got some in the boot of my car with my gym kit."

Mattie looks at Ruby's gym perfect body. Her own physique wasn't that different now. She'd shed a few pounds in the conversion. Not too much, she still had her curves, the VKS would still look good, keep Leo happy. "Borrow old ones, there's no point spoiling good ones."

"Oh. Okay then."

The lift bings again. Mattie chuckles. "At least nobody's installed a personality in the lift control yet. Actually.. maybe Mitch would like a speaker in here."

"Who's Mitch?"

"Mitchel our building management AI. Apparently his first spoken communication was via clips of a song, Odi helped give him a voice while I was away. Mitchel from Modern Family?"

"Nice. What was the music he used before getting a voice?"

"Um.. pass. I'll ask.." She leans against the lift and smiles. "Faithless. Bring My Family Back?"

"Cool! Do you like EDM too?"

"It's growing on me thanks to Emily."

"BFF?"

"I guess you could call the princess that. What sort of music do you like?"

"Ruby, EDM for sure. It's growing on the Cindy part of me too. Cindy, classical, pop, a bit of everything."

"Favourite artist?"

"André Tanneberger, better known as ATB.. Ha, a three letter acronym, why do I get the feeling you'd like that?"

"Because you saw me smile?"

"Probably."

~~~

Ruby follows Mattie out of the lift. "No bing that time?"

"Maybe it was changed so it doesn't disturb people on this floor? Our bedrooms are up here."

"That would make sense."

Mattie steps to her room door, hears the lock click. 'Was that you Mitchel?'

'Yes Mattie.'

'Can you tell me and Ruby apart?'

'I can.'

'Good, thanks. Would you prefer Mitch or Mitchel?'

'Either is good.'

'Thanks Mitch.' She heads to their large double wardrobe and slides the door across. "Take your pick."

At the bottom were a mass of plimsoles, trainers and some old hockey boots.

"Do a lot of sports?"

"In the sixth form I bruised a lot of shins. I find plimsoles or trainers more comfortable than heals. Or at least I used to."

"Same here, as Cindy. Ruby I think could put on anything and be comfortable. Anything from flats to high heals, nothing seems to be a problem. Just like Sammy. When we first went to a rave with John I felt nervous and excited at the same time, I'd never danced in shoes like that, even at my own wedding."

"You're married?"

"Cindy was. Divorced."

"Oh. Sorry."

"I'm not. A controlling shit he was."

"My parents aren't together. Not officially divorced yet, might as well be." Mattie watches Ruby change into old plimsoles, does the same. "Leo was worried about one of your boyfriends trying to entice me away, I was worried about you doing the same with Leo. I think Danny should be more worried, Ems loves to dance."

"Ems being Princess Emily? Is she a real princess?"

"She is. Was. Will be again."

Ruby stands. "Ready. Which one of you designed James? He's _huge_!"

"It wasn't us. He's on loan from the army."

"Oh."

"We're going to give them body upgrades and new code to boot from."

"Even bigger?"

"God no! Human like bodies. They're currently eunuchs."

"There's more than one?"

"Loads. We've got just the three on loan. Let's go say Hi." Mattie gestures for Ruby to lead. As her sister leaves the room she goes to the laundry basked and has a good sniff of Leo's shirt. She wanted to remember _exactly_ how he smelt. A mix of cologne and raw Bunny.

~~~

James laughs as best he can, "I was about to send out a search party."

"Sorry James."

"Not a problem, you've no doubt got a lot to deal with."

"Can we both go see how Two and Three are doing?"

"Sure." He starts walking. "We've got PPE at the bottom of the shaft for you now. Hats, boots and jackets. Frank found risk assessment paperwork on Danny's desk at home, didn't want any more accidents."

"Right."

"And we've installed a safety rail around BB8. By the way, I took the liberty of looking up the jet Emily's father owned, with so little luggage onboard you were well within recommended weight limits."

"We were? Good."

"On Thursday evening Two overheard Barbara and Cindy outside, they planned to make all the costumes out there, the dancing girls were only to take what they had on."

"That would explain so few cases waiting in the hallway." Mattie sucked in her lips and thought about what she knew people had packed just before the backups started. Her Slate, Leo packed his laptop. Between Soph, Ron and Shiny two iPad Pro and an iPad mini, they'd all need replacing. She didn't know what Danny packed. Sophie should get a Pro too. Something to talk to Mum about. What did the insurance cover when you died and then came back? Then another thought popped into her head. Time zones.

'Odi. Are you in the workshop?'

'Yes.'

'How old did NASA1 say my backup was?'

'Don't start worrying about that. It's showing age at incident, not age in real time. All under twelve hours.'

'Why? That's not what I coded.'

'David thought that metric more relevant.'

'Oh. I suppose that makes sense, everyone's times won't shift as the many builds continue.'

'I came to the same conclusion.'

'What are you doing at the moment?'

'Helping David mock up a build machine mould.'

'I thought he ran simulations in his head?'

'He doesn't have sufficient data on concrete flow and hardening.'

'Okay. Ruby and I are heading down the shaft, we'll drop off the WiFi.'

'You shouldn't, there's a TP-Link repeater at the bottom now.'

'Awesome. Thanks Odi!'

The three start their walk down the spiral staircase. Ruby keeps her left hand against the smooth concrete wall, body in close. "How far down are we going?"

"Twenty three meters give or take. Not good with heights?"

"Heights, sure. Depths is more of a problem."

"Why?"

"My drowning at sea. Twice."

"I almost drowned in the lake. Once."

"Really?"

"I.. got my foot caught in something that shouldn't have been there. Leo kicked it free."

"Thank God! What blood group are you by the way? Sorry, were you?"

"AB. Why?"

"What? How's that possible?"

"Why? What are you?"

"Rh null. Which is why they'd kept my body intact for so long."

Mattie can't be bothered to search. "What's Rh null when it's at home?"

"Rhesus Negative. I have no Rhesus antigens. Most doctors can't understand why I'm so fit and healthy. The thing is.. if we're twins from the same egg we should share the same blood type. Unless maybe I had a major genetic mutation? And if I did why doesn't it show in a DNA test?"

"Excuse my ignorance, what's an antigen? Biology lessons sucked."

"Proteins on the surface of blood cells that cause a response from the immune system."

"So that's a good thing?"

"You could donate my blood to anyone and they wouldn't reject it."

"That's rather neat."

"Which is why I donate regularly." Ruby's phone rings. She looks up. "I'm surprised I've still got a signal. Excuse me a sec."

They all stop.

"Shiiii. Why'd you look in there? My underwear's in the top two draws! Okay.. okay.. you've found it now. I thought you'd have left by now? Oh. You might as well put it in the bag too." She takes the next step.

"Problem?"

"She just found something I didn't think to hide better. Now she wants one."

"One what?"

Ruby goes silent. 'Capella Rabbit Vibrator.'

'Oh. Good is it?'

'Brilliant. I had it imported, it cost me six hundred..'

'How much!'

'Swedish Krona, just under sixty pounds.'

'Oh. That's not so bad. It sounds like something Emily would like.'

'I wasn't sure about it, I'd never used something like that as Cindy, some of my new rave friends recommended it highly.'

Mattie drops off WiFi for a moment as they continue down the steps then rejoins via the TP-Link, does a Internet search and bursts out laughing, "I'm giving that a new nickname. The SBG. Swedish Bean Grinder."

James One turns briefly to see them both. "Are you fans of smooth, dark or rich roast coffee?"

Ruby snort laughs, "Definitely rich!" 'Mattie John's got a brilliant complexion. Tans beautifully. What's your man like?'

'Leo? These days light and smooth.'

'These days?'

'He was almost brain dead. Twice.'

'Twice?'

They reach the bottom and look at BB8 spinning away.

'He drowned when he was a kid, the hospital declared him brain dead, David brought him here to the Elster Estate and made him the first half synth.'

"Leo? David? _Elster?_ OH MY GOD!"

'What? You're talking out loud by the way.'

'Sorry. I, Cindy years, was still in med school. Holy cow! Leo only got me specialising in brain research. If it wasn't for him I wouldn't be talking to you like this now! Holy fuck!'

'Are you for real?'

'I could bump you memories of him and David in the hospital but you'd probably be better off not seeing. Seen with Cindy's eyes not these, but the memories are still crystal clear.'

~~~

[Chapter-7](http://markse.name/humans/KARMA/Chapter-7-1)


	7. Chapter 7

James lets them watch BB8 for a few more seconds. "12000 RPM. The mains off it's turned into DC then back to standard 50Hz mains in the conversion cabinet behind the workshop."

Mattie does a high speed capture to see the BB8 paint on Miley was still good. "Conversion cabinet?"

"In the power outbuilding with cage with double locks by the west side of the lift. The reason Danny was drinking so much Red Bull to stay awake?"

"Another of his surprises? And who's got the keys?"

"Danny and.. oh. A slight problem. I wonder where the spare keys to the locks went? Each lock had three keys."

"When you wired up BB8 what did you wire _to_ exactly?"

"A junction board in the adjacent cabinet."

"Adjacent cabinet?"

"One for all the junction boxes. One for the power conversion array. There's lots of conversion circuits working in parallel to cope with the current and eliminate single points of failure."

"Only the keys are with Danny and?"

"Toby. On their key chains."

"So now lost. Frigging fantastic. Danny gets built after Leo, maybe I should bump Toby up the priority list?"

"Maybe Mattie. Two and Three want to fire the car engines up again and get digging and clearing, I've told them we've got a breather down here so they'll hold on."

Ruby gives him an odd look. "Did you just call me a breeder?"

" _Breather_. As in air? Lungs full?"

"Oh. Sorry."

James waves them in. "The old engine gives off some nasty fumes, there's no catalytic converter. The ropes and buckets you see running out of the tunnel and up the shaft help us clear the dirt fast, that one's powered by the engine from Laura's old car. Three is using the Mini engine digger for the clay digging, Two is on small rock smashing duty. I had been on floor cleaning until Odi said your ejection was close Mattie."

Ruby gives Mattie a funny look.

"Ejection from the build machine. It's on auto-build mode."

"Sounds lovely." Ruby looks at the ceiling as James turns on his torch. "Have you had anything take up residence?"

"Like bats? We did until the ultrasonics went in. They bloody hate it. You might be able to hear it Mattie if you overclock and audio sample at maximum."

James shines his torch down the tunnel as they turn the corner.

Ruby glances back to the shaft, "How long is the tunnel?"

"Before it opens up? Thirty meters. We made good progress without Dozer about. Lovely guy but a breather too, we didn't want to suffocate him. The fans have been getting the air clear for a few hours now. It won't stay good long once the engine's on."

Mattie notices the distance between seam lines in the concrete change and the texture go from wood to grain in places to totally smooth and not perfectly flat. "How have you been doing the formwork?"

"Semi-Inflatable. One of Franks customers had a son getting rid of some old bouncy castles."

"Bouncy castles?"

"Bouncy castles. Nice big fans and loads of heavy duty plastic coated material. We've cut them up and used them for the corners of the formwork. When it set enough we dropped the pressure, peeled it off and moved it along for the next bit. We'd saved quite a bit of time doing sections five times as long each pouring."

They get to a wide curved bend.

Mattie steps close and runs her hand along the top rock the bend curved around. "Which one's Astrid?"

"You'll have to ask Two."

Ruby crouches down and looks at the two long sections of curved rock that sat less than two feet apart, one above the other. "What are these?"

James bends a little to get the light lower. "We think they're large asteroids. Intact."

"But they'd.."

"Me massive? Yes. Two thinks the top one is eighteen meters in diameter. The lower one isn't round, possibly twenty three.."

"Wow!"

"By forty four." James turns to carry on down the tunnel.

"Frigging hell!" Mattie wishes she had a phone with LED torch with her, yet more hardware for the list. Might as well get forty phones and have some spares about. "Bring the light back please James."

James turns around and shines the light back on the rocks. "He says the lower one is at a slight angle, if you did a cutaway diagram they'd look like a semicolon."

"A semicolon?"

"A punctuation mark. Let's see Two and Three."

~~~

[Chapter-8](http://markse.name/humans/KARMA/Chapter-8-1)


	8. Chapter 8

The three get closer to the end of the tunnel, James deliberately looking down and shading the light to illuminate the floor and little else.

He stops. "Ready?"

Mattie stands by his side. "You're getting a bit theatrical James One."

"Thanks. How are you Ruby?"

"I'm good."

He moves his hand to widen the head torch beam and looks up.

"Bloody hell!"

"Frigging A!"

Two and Three were stood waiting with heavy duty scaffolding and formwork. They'd got ten meters into what would be the main vault and lab space already..

Ruby leans back a bit. "Am I imagining things or could you fit my house in here when you're done?"

James pauses. "Searching.. average UK house, ground to roof apex.. a little over seven meters, so yes."

"How high is the ceiling?"

"Eight."

Mattie does a full turn, "Why so frigging big?"

"1000 meters in binary? Sixteen wide. You can put mezzanine floors in. Big machines. Or machines that need to take advantage of gravity flows. Also the bigger it is the less concrete we use for the volume of space returned."

Mattie waved at the two waiting military unit synths. "And who's paying for the concrete?"

"David."

"Who?"

"David. Did I not say his name clearly enough Mattie?"

"You did, I just found it hard to believe. How far have you got to go before you reach the lift shaft?"

"We were thinking of making this thirty two meters long, then going back to tunnel size. If it needs to be bigger we can dig more of the ends out. Oh. Sorry, Odi says a lorry with more scrap rebar has arrived, I need to get back to the surface pronto."

"Rebar?"

"It's reinforced concrete. You don't want the roof of the vault falling in and breaking everyone's wine bottles do you?"

"No, no we don't. Two, Three, thanks for all your hard work doing this."

The two MUS smile and nod.

"By the way.. has David spoken to you about concrete yet? He wants to use it to build the case and static parts of a build machine, get a whole load of build machines so we can get the family back faster, get you your new bodies."

Two jumps down. "Boss, if you and Three get rebar can I consult?"

"Sure. Three, come on! We've got a lorry to empty."

"Yes Boss!"

~~~

Mattie watched the three eagerly march off down the tunnel taking the light with them. "Binary, threes, acronyms, all popular here."

As they all walked back Mattie realised she hadn't seen any cobwebs. "No bats now, no spiders either?"

"Fake conkers."

"Eh?"

"Our searches revealed that they hate conkers."

"I'm not following you?"

"You'll see on the way up the shaft."

"I'll see what?"

"Cages glued to the underside of the steps."

"Full of conkers?"

"No. Artificial conkers. Conkers contain an amphipathic glycoside called saponin, which repels spiders. Our saponin comes from the soapnut."

"So why not say the cages are full of soapnuts?"

"Because people know what a conker is?"

"And not a soapnut?"

"Correct."

"If you can put some at the door to the house Mum will love you. She hates spiders."

Mattie gets a bump from Odi, a car with female driver was pulling into the estate. "Ruby, your Swedish Coffee Grinder delivery is here by the sounds of it."

Ruby bumps her sideways. "You should get one."

Mattie answers silently with a head bump. 'Nope. I have a toy from America, don't use it anymore. I don't need to with Leo. My Orange belt lover.' Crap. Another thing to order. A replacement belt. 'We've got a few unboxed still, if you and Sam want to take one each. They're Bluetooth controlled.'

'Bluetooth?'

'So your partner can be in control.'

'Oh. Or hands free if you're a synth or have lace?'

'Yeahhh. Hadn't thought of that. Maybe mine will come out of retirement until Leo's ready.'

'If Leo's that good make a second Leo you can keep in the wardrobe for emergencies.'

Mattie stops and stares.

'Sorry. Bad taste?'

'Just a frigging bit.'

'Sorry. My JC's away at a conference, if I could power up a standby I would, the SBG as you called it is good but not in his league.'

'Right.'

'I mean a SBG can massage you down there but it can't tease a nipple and French kiss you at the same time.'

'Thanks for the detailed description, I can imagine plenty on my own thanks!'

'Sorry. That's the Ruby in me. I, she, was quite the wild child when it came to jumping into a sleeping bag with boys.'

'I she?'

'You will keep my secret won't you? For a while it was like we were two distinct people in the one body. Cindy first, then hints of Ruby. Now we're so entwined we're an amalgam of both people. I'm neither Ruby or Cindy. I call myself Ruby only because that's my body's birth name.'

'And you want to hide Cindy?'

'There's an element of that too. Ah.. now I see the cages.'

~~~

[Chapter-9](http://markse.name/humans/KARMA/Chapter-9-1)


	9. Chapter 9

Sam handed her mother the bag. "Bloody hell Mum! Identical twin?"

Ruby looked skywards. "Shout it out for everyone to hear why don't you?"

James does the head tilt he'd seen Sophie give him so many times. "Mum? Ruby isn't old enough to have had you?"

Samantha puts hands on hips. "She _nags_ me like a daughter so I call her mum."

"Oh. Okay."

Ruby grins. 'Nice recovery wouldn't you say Mattie?'

'Looks a bit rehearsed.'

'You think?'

'Yeah. Needs a bit more emotion. Have her think of something that happened in her life that got her really fucking mad.'

'Okay. Her father walking out might do.'

'Crap. Sorry to hear that, can't have been easy for her.'

'She didn't understand for a long time, does now.'

~~~

James One and Three go to deal with the huge high sided scrap metal lorry.

Samantha looks at the two sisters. "If it wasn't for the dresses and your responses I'd have a hard time knowing who was who."

Ruby looks at Mattie, "I'll take that as a compliment. Are all the rooms as nice as yours?"

"Some are smaller, same standard of finishings."

"Nice. Same wardrobe design?"

"Slightly narrower, still doubles."

Ruby waits for Mattie to do something.

Sam frowns at her mother. "Why'd you ask that?"

"I'd like to hang my dress up before it gets all creased in the bag, get out of these plimsoles."

"Okay. I wouldn't mind getting out of this myself."

"Why?"

"All my best comfortable stuff went up in flames."

Sam looks at the building, "You had a fire?"

Mattie raises an eyebrow sarcastically. "You don't watch the news much then?"

"Not much, too much crap going on, why?"

Ruby smiles at her sister, "Mattie was part of that crap, on that plane that crashed at JFK."

"How? The papers said there were no survivors?"

Mattie grins. "There weren't. Bodily. I'm a synth now."

"Holy cow! Really?"

"Really."

"Your eyes.."

"Are my original colour. No green blue bonded unbonded crap needed."

"Right. Can you still be turned off with a tap to the chin?"

"Um.." Mattie gives it a thought and frowns. "Hmm. It would appear there's a software override that I can use to disable it. Let me show you to your rooms. Leave dirty footwear outside, I'll deal with it later."

"So that thing on the policeman, it wasn't a mock documentary? You can really do it?"

"Yup."

"Whoa. That's.. just whoa. Game changer."

"It sure is."

"Give me a sec to get Molly."

~~~

As they enter the hall and get under the pure white LED light Mattie checks out Sam's complexion. "Have you been on holiday? You've got a nice colour."

"Sort of. Supporting a dancer friend in Ibiza. I only got back today."

"Where'd you go?"

"Amnesia, Sunday night, a special one off show for Serena and Jane. Serena's a dancer, Jane does all her technology stuff."

"She's a synth?"

"No, no she's just into wearing some dead raunchy stuff, lots of LED and Arduino controllers."

"She sounds like someone Emily would definitely like meeting. Sandra too maybe, it'll be a while before they're built." Mattie steps to the workshop door, finds it won't open. 'David?'

'In the middle of something, won't be long!'

'Middle of what?'

'Fitting a food processor to Poppy. The best condition spare we had. I'll unlock the door when I'm ready to do the hair mod. Actually, you could do me a big favour.'

'Name it.'

'Go into our room and check out the clothes she didn't pack for America, bring me the one she wore the most.'

'Okay.' Mattie turns to her guests. "Right. Bedrooms. Are you stairs or lift sorts of ladies?"

Sam looks at Ruby, "Definitely stairs."

"Cool." Mattie checks with Odi, gets a couple of room numbers. "We might need to put the odd thing away, we had some elderly astronauts staying with us."

~~~

Inside Ron's room they find a load of drawings of Miami in costume arranged over the bed.

Sam leans over it to look closer. "These are amazing!"

"Good isn't he. I hope he's as good when he comes back."

"From where?"

"The dead. He's in NASA1 with the rest of my friends and family."

"NASA1?"

"Network attached storage archive. Aka The Ark. We backed the team up before heading to the airport."

Samantha leans against the dresser. "Oh hell. How many people were on that flight?"

"Lots. The only ones we don't have backups for are the two pilots. I'm kicking myself for not getting David to back them up first. Which of you wants this room?"

Sam puts up a hand. "Me please. I'd like to carefully gather these up and study them."

"Okay. Wrench's room for you then Ruby. Appropriate as he wants a synth we've nicknamed Red."

"Why?"

"Lots of red hair."

"I see."

"Follow me."

~~~

After getting Ruby into the room Mattie goes to David and Poppy's room. 'David, can you unlock your bedroom door please?'

Click.

'Done.'

'Thanks. Just a dress or underwear too?'

'Those and shoes please.'

'Sure. Anything else?'

'No thanks, I've got my hair mod machine here.'

'Okay.'

Mattie steps inside, turns on the lights. She steps to the fitted wardrobe and slides the right hand door to the left. David's. His part of the wardrobe was only a quarter full of his things, the rest was dresses. She slides both doors the other way.

"Frigging hell! How many dresses does she own for frig's sake?"

An idea hit her. Her first synth rooster. Being synth now all good ideas would be. Ideas can't fly from a synth mind. She chuckles to herself. A synth mind was fly paper for ideas. RFID tags on everything, even dresses for dry cleaning. And readers in bedrooms. Better still and automatic hanger system. An inventory of what was worn when, what things go together. Another project for Danny and Emily. Prince Charming and his Dandy Highway-woman.

She shoves the left hand group to the right hard, starts looking through the dresses one at a time, sliding them along the rail. She'd not seen Poppy in any of these. Were they all new and waiting their turn?

'David?'

'Yes?'

'All the dresses in the left hand wardrobe, has she worn _any_ of them yet?'

'Pass. You could ask Mitch for a summary of everything he's seen on the CCTV?'

Men! Did they really not pay any attention? 'Hmm. Okay, that's not a bad idea. Thanks.' She looks at the rail and quickly counts the number of hangers. 87! Jeez. She whips through a load at speed focusing only on the label at the back. B&CC. Barbara and Cindy Candlin? Which meant bespoke. How much had she spent on these? She must have single handedly worn the two out, no wonder they were so keen for a break, even if it was a working holiday.

Maybe Cindy could give her some feedback if Mitch couldn't? Another restore into a spare? If David had done it for Poppy then Cindy could be back just as fast. Having some mass produced models had advantages.

'Mitch dear?'

'Hi Mattie!'

'Hello. Can you do me a _big_ favour?'

'Sure, what is it?'

'Can you review all the footage of the dresses David's Poppy has worn and sort them into most worn to least, give me the top ten?'

'On it Mattie!'

'Thanks!'

~~~

[Chapter-10](http://markse.name/humans/KARMA/Chapter-10-1)


	10. Chapter 10

Mattie hears a knock on the door. "Hi?"

"Hi Mattie? It's Sam."

"Hi Sam. Everything okay?"

"I was wondering if you might have a box or large ziplock bag?"

"For?"

"Spare teeth?"

Mattie bursts out laughing, "Seriously? He's got spare gnashers?"

"Two sets. One labelled Eating, one Rest of day."

"The best person to ask is Odi. And whatever he picks it's likely to be in a storage bin in the workshop. Which is on lockdown because David's doing a food processor mod."

"A hardware mod?"

"So Poppy can eat, not have to use a food bag."

"Can he do that to any synth?"

"Sure."

Sam steps into the room properly and closes the door. "Can you keep a secret?"

"From?"

"Mum."

"Sure."

"My current boyfriend is a synth."

"And that's bad?"

"No, just.. Mum's had to avoid being around synths for the research data. I know she's blown it now, but I've been going out with him for three months already and haven't told her."

"That you're seeing him or that he's a synth?"

"Both."

"Ah."

"If I'd said she'd have wanted to invite him around for dinner, she'd have worked it out and been pissed off."

"Why pissed off?"

"Because I would have brought that part of her research to a close."

"Well she's done that herself now seeing me. Excuse me one sec Mitch is telling me something." 'Mitch?'

'Hi Mattie! Lots and lots to report. I've seen her in four dresses some days.'

'Four? For frig's sake. If she changes that often _any_ dress will do, she can change afterwards. Thanks.'

'Okay Mattie.'

Mattie quickly pushes dress after dress to the end of the rail, pushes a few back and grabs one, looks at shoes at the bottom, grabs a pair and goes to the draws. Dropping the dress onto the bed and shoes on the floor she opens the top draw. "Whoa. Nice undies!"

Sam steps closer, "Where are they from?"

Mattie checks a label. "Myla?"

"God she's got some money!"

"Expensive are they?"

"Check www.myla.com."

"Okay.. frigging hell! I usually buy a bag full for the money she's spent on a single bra."

"Me too."

Mattie grabs a bra and finds matching knickers. "If you can excuse me a sec, I need to drop these into David."

"Do you think she'd mind me looking through the dresses?"

"As long as you're careful, no. Back in a moment." Mattie grabs the dress and shoes and leaves.

Sam has a nose through the draws, gets a few sets together and takes a photo, "That's the Christmas wish list sorted." The underwear is returned to the draw, phone pocketed. Sam looks at the long line of hangers and is about to check them out when Ruby steps in.

"There you are. Where's Mattie?"

"Dropping a dress downstairs. Come and look at these. I think they're all one off designs."

Ruby watches her daughter check out dress after dress. "Quite a range she's got there, which brands?"

"All by the same fashion house by the looks of it? B and CC?"

"Never heard of them."

"Got your block on the WiFi?"

"David gave me the password."

"Then search!"

"Okay, keep your thong in place.. not finding anything."

"There must be."

"Get that phone out of your pocket and see for yourself. I've searched for B and CC with the word and the symbol, no results."

"There has to be!" Sam gets her phone.

"Has to be what?"

She looks over to the doorway, "Mattie, B and CC, what's their website?"

"For that range, there probably isn't one."

"Why?"

"I reckon they're all unique one offs by Danny's Mum Barbara and her assistant Cindy. Not much point showing off something nobody else can order."

"Every one is made just for her? Lucky lady."

"Yeah, David's a bit of a dark horse, loves hiding things. I don't know how much he sold the exclusive rights to Persona for but I suspect he's got a good penny or two stashed away somewhere. And he's probably got a core or two playing the markets, growing his funds."

"Core?"

"In his head. He's synth now two. He made the technology that brought Pete back, now us."

Odi sends Mattie a message.

She looks at her guests, with the most evil of grins. "Want to have a bit of wicked fun? You'll leave the estate with a party bag in return."

Ruby grins back, "SBG variety gifts?"

"Definitely."

"Could I be really cheeky and ask for one for my friend Lucy? We used to rave a lot together on the beach."

"Sure, I need you to get changed super fast into some of my old clothes."

~~~

[Chapter-11](http://markse.name/humans/KARMA/Chapter-11-1)


	11. Chapter 11

Mattie fishes the bean pendant out of her bra and puts it away in her bedside draw. "Pick any old top and bottom, I never used to give much of a toss about coordinating when I just wanted to chill out. We'll wear trainers this time."

Sam helps Ruby out of her dress. "What's the plan?"

"I don't think Dad knows I've got a twin. Odi says he's shit-faced."

Ruby slows, "In which case he's probably mourning the loss of his daughter."

"Him? The fuck Anita because she's nothing more than a robot type? He knows exactly what we can do here."

"Does he know about your archive? That you all have backups?"

Mattie too now slows. "Fuck. No. Unless Mum told him. Maybe, maybe not."

"If he's feeling like shit do you want to make it worse?"

"Okay Jiminy Cricket. Same prank different script. Hurry up. I'll bump you follow."

"We're not going to leave him a wreck? That's not my style."

"No. We'll confuse the crap out of him for a few seconds, leave him happy."

"Good."

"Odi's just bumped to say he's waiting in the hall. Blast. Okay, script revised. Ready?"

Ruby ties up the cord for the tracksuit bottoms, slips on trainers. "Ready."

~~~

Mattie walks downstairs and looks at her father. He looked far worse than she'd imagined, his life signs low. "Dad?"

A distraught Joe shuffles to her. "I thought.."

"Yeah Dad. The news didn't quite get things right."

"But.."

Ruby now walks slowly down the stairs. "They didn't have all the facts."

Joe looks from one to the other repeatedly. "I'm seeing double, not eyes messed up double." The creases in his forehead would need botox treatment if he wasn't careful. He wobbles and takes a step back to stay upright. "How?"

Mattie scrapped the teasing idea. "When Mum was pregnant the first time did people tease her about having twins?"

"Lots. Did you get yourself a synth copy?"

Mattie smiles sadly. "No Dad. I've come back from JFK as a synth, this is my flesh and bone sister Ruby."

Joe steps to Ruby, "Getting a synth copy made? Mattie how could you?"

Ruby shakes her head, "You're talking to Ruby, Mattie's there."

Joe takes her hand, leads her to Mattie, holds a hand of Mattie's. "No, you're Mattie, you're human warm, she's the copy." His mood lifts. "Did the news talk about someone else's plane? Are you all okay? Where's Soph?"

If Mattie had a human heart it would have broken. She drops all sarcasm and talks softly, "Dad, _I'm_ Mattie. That's my twin sister Ruby. Mum had _twins_ , don't you get it? I was killed in the crash. If it wasn't for David's gadgets you'd be minus a daughter."

"But.."

"No buts, I'm the first female human to come back as a synth. I've _done a Drummond_."

Joe wobbles and gingerly gets down to the floor rather than fall over. "Does this mean.."

Mattie sits on the floor too, "That Toby and Sophie come back as synths? Yes. We're all saved. You'll have to put up with crap from us for decades to come."

Joe puts his head in his hands. "The ex-synthie comes back as a synth. Oh God.

"She'll be just as you remember her. Aren't I? Dad? Look at me Dad. God you stink, what have you been drinking?"

"Something Helena brews."

"Don't frigging pickle yourself with it you big beardy idiot."

Joe laughs, "That's my daughter alright. Who'd you say the other one is?"

"Ruby. We'll get some strong coffee on, you need to talk to mum. And keep off the home made Special Brew, you smell like a frigging tramp."

Joe tries to get up, ends on one knee, "I doubt tramps get to do much frigging."

Mattie gets a hand under each armpit and lifts him up with ease. "You never know, there may be a synth willing to turn their sense of smell off and overlook other personal hygiene issues. Odi, can you get Mum please?"

~~~

They got Joe into the kitchen, start diluting the alcohol with coffee and water.

Mattie reaches for the orange juice again. Pauses. 'David, have I got a food processor?'

'All new builds have, built in.'

'Fully tested?'

'You're the first, go slow.'

'Will do. Thanks.' She turns to Joe. "How long have you been drinking?"

"Since Friday after I heard the news. I came here, nobody answered the door."

"They were all busy. What did you hear?"

"About the crash."

Mattie took a tiny sip of juice. So this is what orange tasted like for a synth. Not at all bad. "How did you know we were onboard?"

"I'd overheard people talking about the flight Thursday evening, we had our apartment window open. I phoned the airport, they confirmed it was your flight that had ended just short of the runway."

Mattie frowned, "They didn't use the word crash?"

"They used all sorts of words, didn't seam to want to use that one."

"Can I leave him here with you a sec Mum? I want to talk to David."

"Can't you bump?"

"Face to face."

"Okay."

~~~

[Chapter-12](http://markse.name/humans/KARMA/Chapter-12-1)


	12. Chapter 12

David unlocks the door to let Mattie in. "Thanks for picking a dress."

She looks at the crowd gathered. "No problem. How many of you are there now?"

"A dozen. One of me joked about bib vests with numbers on. I said no."

"So how do I know you're Simon One?"

"Ha bloody ha."

"I'm serious."

"I'm not wearing a number."

"So Simon Blue Shirt is always One?"

David looks around at the others. "That will do. What can I help you with Mattie?"

"Cindy. Couldn't she restore into a spare like you've done with Poppy?"

"She could. Do you think she'd cope okay without Barbara about?"

"Ah. She's not the most confident synth on her own.. how do you think Danny would cope with restoring into another synth temporarily?"

"And get a chance to ride that bike? He'd bite your arm off!"

Mattie looked at the tape wrapped electric bike frame. The Bike Alfie that Niska had pushed to over three hundred miles an hour, now sat in the far corner. "Which body do you think he'd like?"

"Very good question. If he wants to go crazy and maybe write it off I'd pick the one we have most of. Another Simon."

"When it comes to everyone's voices.. do we have enough data to make them sound right?"

"That, my dear lady, is a bloody good question. We might have to process any recordings we have and poke through their backups for how they perceived themselves."

"Toby's voice needs to finish breaking."

"It does. Having Danny about would be good for me too, he makes a good sparring partner for bouncing ideas around. Copies of myself aren't.."

A Simon in a salmon pink shirt cuts in. "Any good because we think the same. Blue One, Salmon Two, Grey Three, White Four."

Mattie pulls out a chair, sits and twists back and forth, her feet kept firmly on the same spot. "Anyone fancy getting a spare Simon for me then? Will it be a Lake Simon or Awakening Simon?"

Salmon glances at the doors. "Lake. We took a laptop to the shipping container, they've all been military grade wiped again, systems and all sensory data, chips flashed with even newer code. We thought it best to do it sooner rather than later incase someone powered one up thinking it was done already. We got a bit jittery about one being missed in error."

"Good thinking. We don't want a Miaz take two."

~~~

Just under half an hour later Mattie, Ruby and Sam were stood in the workshop in front of Danny Simon. DS for short. In his Nintendo branded t-shirt. David had thought about Miaz's army of broken synths, the ones in the building Red Niska had found Odin in. He'd blindfolded Danny, told Mattie to talk to him up close and keep a hand under his chin just in case.

She taps, no power up sound plays. He raises his head and frowns, goes to lift hands.

"Dan! Stay still! Don't talk! Understood?"

He frowns more and nods.

"I'm going to ask you some questions. Nod once for yes. Sideways and back once for no. Small moves. Understood?"

He does a small forwards nod.

"Great. Some test questions.."

'We're dead.'

'Fuck.'

"I can hear the whir of the build machine fans to my left behind me. They have quite a distinct sound. Remember I've been studying the thing in detail, reading the large manual set. The only reason for me to hear them like this on Monday is because something went wrong. Badly wrong. And I heard that Fuck in my head. New bodies?"

"For me so far. You're in a loaner Simon. Fancy testing the bike out?"

"Got a loaner for Emily too?"

"Um.. do you think.."

"Get one ready. You'll see."

"Okay. Any preference?"

There's a delay. "As I'm in a Simon.. Sally."

David stands. "Sure, give us fifteen minutes."

Danny lifts the blindfold. "Fifteen? I can do it faster myself. See you in four."

~~~

True to his word four minutes later Danny entered the workshop with a Sally over his shoulder, already dressed in a set of Emily's gym shorts and vest top. He sits her down and goes to a draw, gets a cable.

He works fast, gets her patched into the Nexus switch. "Okay, can you push her backup over Mattie?" He turns to see the twins. "I can tell which of you is which. Who's your twin?"

"Ruby."

"Since when did you have a twin? Actually, don't bother answering. From birth obviously. Why's Ruby grinning?"

Ruby smiled. 'You called it Push.'

"You're like Leo? Half synth?"

"Neural Lace."

"Oh. One of _them_."

"What do you mean _them_ "

"I had one visit a client site I was working at, he tried to use his block to hijack a synth."

"What happened?"

"Since they were sat on the same WiFi network as me I fought back on her behalf."

"Fought back?"

"My bite was bigger than his. I have.. gadgets. It left him with a migraine headache for three hours."

"I'm on your side, I'm not looking for trouble."

"Good. Mattie?"

"Uh.. yeah, logging on."

"You've not moved."

'I don't need to if I don't want to.'

'Right.'

~~~

Danny placed the blindfold on Emily, sat at David's laptop and fired up Audacity.

Sam watched him with curiosity. "What are you doing?"

"Making my backing track loop."

"Backing track?"

"Yeah. Music."

"Why?"

"You'll see very soon." He goes back to his cable draw, finds audio leads, hooks up the sound cannon speakers Sophie, Renie and Radiant had made.

"You're going to play her music?"

"Sing a love song."

Mattie gives him a thumbs up. "Restore done."

~~~

Danny wheels another chair over and sits down, gets their knees interlaced. He looks over to the laptop and thinks. Moments later the music starts playing, a wordless thumping section of a track that repeated after a few seconds.

He taps Emily's chin and lets one loop worth play before singing the words to the track slowly. " _It's not that I'm ungrateful for.. The chance to dream and then explore. But your elegant dinosaur limbs. Are still wilfully bruising my skin. Get your sticky fingers out of my head. Get your sticky fingers out of my head_."

Emily smiles, "My Prince Danny!" She throws arms around him as if she had no blindfold on, pulls him in and gives him a full on kiss.

Ruby looks at Mattie. "What just happened?"

"And how the frigging hell is that a love song?"

Emily pulls off the blindfold. "One of my favourite bands? We made a pact. If both of us had to come back as synths the one to do the last power up would sing the song to confirm the love was still there."

"Get your sticky fingers out of my head?"

"Headcrackers?"

"Ah!"

"So when do we get the proper bodies?"

David kicks with both feet and glides over. "Builder One is busy with Leo, Alfie is milling parts for Builder Two. The other eleven me are working on designs for moulds so we can pour concrete shells for more building machines, cut down on the parts Alfie has to make."

Danny does a good mock evil genius laugh. "If we get standard UPS boxes between each of the NASA1 feeds and BB8 as a PWHB we could have a go building an electric arc or induction furnace. If we poured the metal parts first, had Alfie tidy them up.."

"We could save a hell of a lot of time!"

Mattie turns her back to David, kicks, moves and drags a foot to spin. They bump knees. "Define hell of a lot?"

"A build machine a day? At a push two?"

Danny shakes his head, "Nah. I reckon you could do three once you got going. In a twenty four hour day. Who needs sleep when there's family to bring back?"

"You do."

~~~

Emily stands, "I can't get no sleep! Insomnia! Put it on Dan!"

"Okay Princess. Coming right up. Which version?"

"The original radio edit."

A voice comes over the ceiling speaker. "May I be of assistance?"

"Who are you?"

Mattie gets up and frowns at the flat white speaker. "Mitch?"

"I've progressed past simple cut and splice. I can do a mix for you. Insomnia and Bring My Family Back. I know both tracks well."

Emily looks confused, "Who is Mitch?"

"The building management AI."

"You're kidding? It's.. never mind. Hello Mitch! Let's have a listen then!"

The Sally synth with Emily at the wheel gets dancing, goes to everyone in the room, grabbing their heads and giving them a good kiss on the lips. She goes to Red last. "Wrench was waiting for his new body. Why should you have to wait for a first kiss our Sleeping Beauty?" She taps Red's chin. The power up sound plays.

Red opens her eyes and gets a kiss before she can utter a word. She looks around the room. "Mattie? What's going on? Why have you copied yourself?"

"Eh? How the fuck do you know who I am?"

"I'm.."

The room falls silent.

"Frigging hell! _Niska!_ "

"I can explain.."

"Don't bother. For the moment that's your body. This is my twin Ruby, breather, her friend Samantha, Sammy or Sam depending on how the mood takes you. And you know Danny and Emily."

Red looks most confused. "They forked?"

"No, they.. oh crap. You don't know. You've been powered down the whole time. Apart from David's fork, Odi, Mum, Michael and the James everyone died."

"WHAT!"

"We've got backups of everyone in NASA1. Don't panic!"

Red sees the LCD status display on the box confirming it was NASA1, all drives okay. "How?"

"The plane crashed coming into JFK."

"How can I help?"

~~~

[Chapter-13](http://markse.name/humans/KARMA/Chapter-13-1)


	13. Chapter 13

The saying necessity is the mother of invention got a good proving. The synths worked through the night into the early morning having numerous discussions about build machines. David wanted to replicate what they already had. Multiple standalone build machines. Mattie wasn't sure that was the way to go but was having problems giving any alternatives. Her bag was code, not that sort of hardware building.

Ruby, Sam, Laura and Buzz sat silent, spectators to the sometimes heated arguments held over a constant gapless mix from Mitch.

Danny grabs the white board eraser again and wipes out all of David's facts and sketches. "Think outside the box. What do they do in all the sci-fi films? They have a _production line_. Not single machines. Let's ramp up the capabilities where it's needed. The Miley wrecking ball, BB8, whatever you want to call it lets us draw a shed load of current for short bursts. Let's use that to our advantage."

David folds his arms. "Go on."

"Name the slowest stages."

"They're obvious. Skeleton build and curing."

"So we make a feed system. One skeleton builder with much higher torque motors that can work far faster, we can give it all the current it needs. Multiple arms and tools like Alfie. The equivalent of pick and place is relatively fast right?"

"It's okay."

"Mould making?"

"Faster moving spinners would help."

Ruby finishes a long yawn and frowns. "Spinners?"

"Think of spiderman's web shooters. Only these shoot a material quite thick at first, gets the basic shape of the mould done. As it gets closer to the points that will be the mould inner surface the jets get smaller and smaller until it's almost like a super fine bubblejet spray in a printer. All the hairs are fed through by very fast moving needle."

Mattie thinks about what she'd seen when waking. "Where does it go?"

"It's soluble, dissolved away and recycled for the next one. The moulds in the first machine I used to build Mia, my lord were they heavy. Big two part things I had to drag across the lab on caster wheels."

Danny draws, "So we have something like railway points or an old fashioned railway turntable, the mould making is the last common stage, the curing happens in finishing booths. It helps overcome another problem."

"Which is?"

"We don't have the right sort of mains feed into the room to power six individual build machines if they all happen to be on skeleton build at once. We'd blow the fuse with just three."

"What can this room draw?"

"Eighty amps tops."

"Ah. That's settled then. The Medusa Machine it is." He draws a few concentric circles, puts eight rectangles around them, spaced to keep a gap at the top, draws rails and more boxes for the first build stages. "Something like that?"

"Yeah, that would do it."

"Do we carry on with Builder Two or not?"

"Sure. Two independent machines, one Medusa as you're calling it. One body, eight heads."

"So when we're at full capacity we can have ten synths curing at once."

Danny sucks air through his teeth. "Here for curing. If you want skeleton builds going on concurrently we'll need to relocate a standard build machine to the medical room or run another mains feed in."

Buzz stands. "I've witnessed enough amazing for one day. My bones need a rest. This old astronaut is going to explore inner space."

Samantha gets up, stretches. "Inner space?"

"Between my ears. I'm off to do some dreaming. Which room can I have please Mattie?"

"Buzz Jr's."

"Thanks."

~~~

A minute later Laura takes Michael's hand, "I need some rest too. I suggest our guests all get some rest."

Ruby nods. "My block's running low on power. A good hint that I should get some sleep too. I'll grab Molly and head upstairs."

Sam smiles and winks, "You lightweights. I could go for a few more hours yet."

Mattie walks to the shelves, grabs a box from her larger cardboard box, drops it into a large paper bag. "The doctor prescribes the use of this then. You'll be worn out and sleeping soon enough." It's handed to Sam.

She looks in the bag and frowns, "What is it?"

"Take it upstairs and find out."

"Okay?"

Ruby smiles, "Early party bags?"

Mattie rolls eyes and goes back to the shelf, grabs the last one from Leo's box. "There. We're out. No idea who's had the others." Her mother is given a scan. Guilty! "Good night ladies. I'll charge here. See you in the morning."

Ruby puts a hand on Mattie's shoulder, "Ignoring the desire to sleep?"

"No sleep means no nightmares. I'll sleep when Leo's ready. Go to bed."

~~~

Emily hooks thumbs into the top of her gym shorts, "What can I do Mattie?"

"Invade peoples privacy? I want to know what everyone packed for the flight."

"Okay, back me up again so you can restore me to this moment."

"You want to remember all this?"

"Babes? You want me to forget my prince waking me up and helping invent Medusa?"

"No. Take a seat."

Danny turns back to the laptop. "While you're backing up I'll check all the NASA1 data is syncing to NASA2 okay. You can poke around in two. If anything goes wrong you've not damaged original files."

"Thanks Babes." She watches Mattie plug the long cable into her hip. "Dan Babes, what's the IP address of NASA2?"

"10.3.0.2. Your backup is running, it won't be long."

"Thanks. Matilla babes, what is it you want a list of? Just the expensive items or everything?"

"The lot. We're going to do a massive shop. Four iPad Pro, forty phones, all the clothes and shoes."

"Four?"

"I'm getting Leo and Sophie one."

"Aww, he'll love that! Sophie too. Thinking of Leo and the iPad, I could ask Owen over, get him to redo your ink?"

"Please!"

"If someone can find me a phone I'll call them after I've got my sticky fingers through everyone's heads on NASA2."

"Thanks. They're both welcome to stay here for a while if they'd like?"

"Thanks Babes."

~~~

[Chapter-14](http://markse.name/humans/KARMA/Chapter-14-1)


	14. Chapter 14

At 03:07AM Blue Shirt smiles at Mattie. "What, if you don't mind me asking, are you wearing?"

"This? My backup VKS, my other one was in my bag in the hold."

"So you only have the one?"

"Yes. I can order more, we're ordering a mass of clothes and gadgets. Do you think Poppy would like one?"

"I'm almost done with her hair mod, if you can stay in that we'll see her reaction."

Mattie watches Owen, "Ready?"

"Ready Mattie. Hold very still."

Mattie put her arm over her head and went into a low power standby, enough to keep her mind active and body rigid.

Owen starts the first of two lines for Quibe's Kiss 2015 design, looks up. "Pipe sign too Mattie?"

"Please."

"And the message on your.."

"Not here!"

"Understood."

Emily wheels a chair over and sits next to Mattie. "Owen sweetheart, can I have a pipe too and the ink on my side? I don't know how long I'll be in this body."

"Certainly."

Danny pulls his top off. "Ha! A Simon doesn't need waxing! _Result!_ " He shakes out the t-shirt and rests it on his legs. "Hold on a sec.. who's the joker?"

Mattie smirks. "Sorry. Not sorry."

Danny shakes his head. "Until I'm in the new body call me Nintendo."

Mattie goes wide eyed. "Oh my mod! Mario and Peach! The tunnelling plumber and princess!"

"Babes! I want those names for when we're in our new bodies too!"

"Sure Princess Peach. Or should that be peachy."

" _Cheeky_."

"Exactly."

Danny grins. "She's that alright. Emily that is, not Sally."

~~~

David puts down his micro hair splicing machine. "Done. Hopefully she doesn't have me do that a third time."

Mattie allows her face to move. "A third time?"

"Her synth serial number and build date won't be the same."

"Then patch her fact store to match."

David pulls a range of faces.

"What now? I can't believe you're uncomfortable with it. You've done the hair and food processor mod to make her feel the same, why not that fix?"

"Hmm."

Emily taps toes in sync to the music, "Even if he did their's one telltale sign."

David spins in his chair to face her. "There is?"

"Jeez.. You're a synth, how can you possibly forget?"

David frowns and turns back to see Poppy. "Hair? Check. Dress, shoes and underwear? Check. Food processor? Check. Oh bugger."

"Piercings."

"Piercings." His shoulders drop. "That's a _lot_ of jewellery we'll need to replace. And that can't happen until the shops open. Bugger bugger bugger."

Emily giggles, "You're using that word because.."

"It's a swear word. Don't read _anything_ into it whatsoever."

"Okay hun. There is another option, you just tell her the truth. If she loves you she'll be happy with what you've done for her so far, the belly thing can wait."

David crosses fingers and goes to press her chin.

"Hold up!"

"Mattie?"

"Can Owen get the inking done first in case things kick off?"

"Oh. Okay." He lowers his hand. "Just your one or for Peachy too?"

Emily shrugs, "My ones can wait, no rush."

Owen finishes the last line. "There, happy with that Mattie?"

"Very! Thanks so much Owen."

"A pleasure." Owen puts his airbrush down. "Power away David."

~~~

Red crosses her fingers as David gets ready. She recalls how it felt doing it for the first time, just before finding Odin, the broken test platform responsible for all the trouble days ago. This time, only the second time, doing it felt natural. As if she'd been doing it all her life natural. Odd how a memory can do that. George had designed their skeleton well, they'd crossed easily. Her little friend Sophie was a concern, how would she react to her first power up? Had any of them reacted badly? She'd not witnessed any of it. Clocking faster than normal she watches David's fingers get slowly closer to Poppy's chin. Would it be fireworks or fizzle?

~~~

Poppy hears the tail of her own power up sound play and frowns, opens her eyes and looks around the room at the many faces watching her intensely.

Red was awake. There were four Simon close by wearing David's shirts, they looked too tight on the chest and arms. Mattie looked to have copied herself. A bare chested Simon sat close to a Sally. Michael and Odi were also staring. Owen was sat close to the Mattie copy, his partner Veronica stood behind him. Slightly further away on the other side of the workshop were another eight synths she didn't know, also watching her.

"What's going on? Where are the others? Were Mattie and I left behind?"

The Simon in the blue shirt smiles more, "Hello dear, how do you feel? It's me, David."

She processes all the data to hand quickly, reaches forwards and slaps him as fast and hard as she can. "How _dare_ you!"

"Poppy?"

"Fork you! David original is elsewhere and you decide you want a copy of his partner? How dare you replicate me without my permission!" She slaps him again.

"But Poppy!"

Slap!

Mattie stands. "Poppy let me explain."

"He has no right!"

'CALM THE FRIG DOWN!'

'I'm not taking order from your copy!'

Mattie wishes Ruby was still in the room. 'I _am_ Mattie. The flesh and bone, air breathing, Leo loving, coffee and orange drinking human _IS DEAD_. You've been restored into another body. We never made it to America properly, the jet crashed just before the runway.'

'Dead?'

'Nobody made it out alive. I'm the first off the production line so to speak. Builder One is working on a new body for Leo right now.'

Poppy sits back into the chair. "So why am I in an old body?"

"You provide the most visited service to date. We want people that turn up to get business as normal from our glamorous nurse."

"If we all died would they bother?"

"I'll be putting up a video in the morning saying we're still here."

"I see. Who are all these people?"

Emily raises a hand. "Hi Poppy, Emily in a loaner, nickname Peaches."

Danny copies her move. "Hi Poppy, Danny also in a loaner. Mario."

Mattie sits forwards, runs hands down her shins, "Everyone else you see other than myself, Michael, Red Niska, Owen, Veronica and Odi are David forks. We're working on a new build machine to bring the family back faster."

Poppy sees the photo taped to the side of NASA1 and gets up, gets close. "We looked _so happy_."

"I know. We'll try again ASAP."

"I'm sorry I slapped you David."

"First fork David. You had a right to be angry."

Owen picks up his inking spray gun again, "Princess Peaches, your turn."

David continued to observe Poppy, she looked to be ignoring Mattie's armless and backless jumper. Oh well. "Can we all get back to work? We're here for a reason."

~~~

[Chapter-15](http://markse.name/humans/KARMA/Chapter-15-1)


	15. Chapter 15

Many hands make light work. Many synth hands make light work lighter still. Or would when things were ready for them. The massive roll of carbon fibre that Danny had got to make bunship sections had been given a new end goal: become eight curing pod shells with slide up doors. The large mould making machine he'd made and then abandoned for the bunship builds had been reassembled. It wasn't Alfie driven, it had an old school Arduino Mega controlling motors, a PC program to drive it. Now many of the David forks sat waiting.

Peaches watches the print head race down the mould it was creating, a white foam like substance left as it went. "Mario, is that the same material the build machine uses for its moulds?"

"It's similar in consistency, mine dries even faster and isn't soluble."

"Why not soluble?"

"With sections needing to be large I thought I might need to make things outside. If it rained.."

"Ah. Nobody wants a soggy bun."

Mattie had been focusing on their large shopping list. "Nobody wants a soggy bum?"

"Bu _n_ Babes! Bu _n_!"

"Ha. Where's Blue and Salmon gone?"

"Their looking through all the stuff we have left in the come in handy store."

"For?"

Mario points at the white board. "Something they can use for the door runners."

On the board was a diagram. It looked simple, two vertical tracks one above the other, a curved section at the bottom of each. Like crude hockey stick designs. Arrows indicated that the curved section would get the door forwards before it moved up.

Mattie gets up and finds the pen, draws a square around the curved section, writes Alfie Milling, writes cupboard floor track next to the other and a question mark.

Mario nods. "That's the idea. We don't think there's enough left."

"Then we take down the sliding cupboard doors in rooms upstairs, replace them when an order arrives."

"We take bits of the building apart to make the building machines! Why didn't we think of that! Awesome Mats!" He races away.

Peaches shakes her head. "Nice one Matilla. If he wrecks the kitchen.."

"He better not! I want a sugar loaded coffee soon."

"At least you get to drink, Dan and I don't have the food processor mod in these bodies."

"Not yet. I'm sure Blue fork could fit some. Can you help me review the shopping list?"

"Sure Babes."

~~~

Danny found the two David forks picking through short offcuts. "Mattie just had a brainwave!"

"Mario?"

"We take down cupboards upstairs!"

They both drop what they held, smile at each other.

Blue rubs his stubble free chin, "How many bedrooms are in use?"

"Laura's, Buzz Jr's, Ruby is in Wrench's, Samantha in Rocket's."

"If we use the floor track for one side, the ceiling track for the other.."

Salmon shakes his head. "Ceiling track for the top rails, left and right, floor track for the bottom. Then the lower motor assemblies can be lighter, just help get it forwards, the ones at the top take all the weight. We can use all three of the slots in the tracks so the pinch wheels get a good firm grip."

Blue crouches down and picks up a half meter section of the top rail. "It sounds like a plan. Salmon, assemble a team please. Find all the screwdrivers you can, get all of the doors down and rails out. Quietly, we don't want to disturb our guests."

"Okay."

"And Danny, I'd like your help designing the motor drives. I've got multiple pinch wheels all linked by gears in my mind, maybe you can help with something better."

"Sure."

~~~

Mattie sat on the edge of her chair, body almost straight with hands behind her head. "MacBook Pro or PC Laptops?"

Poppy joins Mattie and Peaches. "I know what I'd have."

"What would you have?"

"A MacBook Pro with VMware Fusion or Parallels Desktop. Then you can run Windows and Linux guests too."

Mattie sat up and stared.

"I don't do any coding yet, if I did that's what I'd use based on all the many conversations I've heard. Toby said it's easier to run those two on a VM rather than install OS X as a VM on the others."

"Toby?"

"Toby."

"When did Toby learn that?"

"Looking into what he'd cover in lower sixth computer studies?"

"Oh. Cool. The local Apple store salesman's going to have a shock when I give him my list in the morning. I wonder what sort of discount they'll give for such a large order?"

Peaches sits forwards a little, hands gripping the front of the chair either side of her legs. "Won't we need a few lap melters?"

"They're still here."

"They are?"

"They should be, check the pedestals later."

~~~

Salmon enters the room, the many other forks all stand to attention, then go to draws and shelves collecting all the tools they could.

Mattie waves at Salmon, "You're not touching the kitchen are you?"

"No, just the empty bedrooms. Quietly."

"Good. Anything we can help with?"

"Not build wise yet, maybe in an hour or so?"

"Okay. We're done with shopping lists. Anything else we can do?"

"How about bringing Cindy back? She can help Poppy with HECLS things should we have more visitors."

"Where's the best condition Cindy?"

"Grab an awakening one from the few left here. Not that there's any real difference between them or the lake ones."

"Few?"

"Poppy's an awakening one, there's one more of her left. There's a couple more Simon, a Howard, Hubert and Cindy."

"How tightly packed were they? It's not a large space."

"Originally? Tight. Like being pushed into a Japanese subway train tight tight."

~~~

[Chapter-16](http://markse.name/humans/KARMA/Chapter-16-1)


	16. Chapter 16

Mattie thought about the time. It had only got to half four. AM. Being a synth now had one disadvantage, so much could be done in so short a time. She should see that as an advantage but could see herself getting bored very _very_ quickly. Maybe she'd need a lot of distractions. On came to mind. "Princess, I found your bean pendant. No chain though."

"Where?"

"Sat in the bottom of a glass of flat champagne up in the garden."

"In.. haha! Yes. Danny and I were mucking about giving piggyback demonstrations to Mia and Toby."

"Why?"

"We were sloshed?"

Mattie turns and looks at the photo of happy people. Happy and still too drunk to be hung over in all likelihood. "That was a good party. Your bubble machine and sound to light effects were awesome. Where's the light cannon now?"

"Safe up in our bedroom upstairs."

"Good." Mattie moves a Hubert and Howard aside, picks Cindy up and puts her over her shoulder. "Having synth strength is nice. When I rescued Odi I needed to borrow a trolley. I'd have managed only meters if I tried to carry him all the way home." She has a flashback of Max carrying Leo. He made it look so easy. Now it was.

Cindy is carried to the desks, lowered onto a chair. Mattie picks the patch cable up off the floor and pulls the little bit of plastic that had been taped around the end off. It's connected to Cindy, the restore started.

Mattie walks to Builder One, kisses her fingers and touches the display panel. "Only a couple more days buns. Miss you." 'David?'

'Mattie?'

'Clean shaven please.'

'Will do.'

'Thanks.'

She steps to their collection of chairs. "My having a meltdown, you and Dan getting like you want to get a room, Poppy getting slap happy. I wonder how Cindy'll cope?"

"I think we should be brutally honest, come straight out with what's happened, that everything will be okay."

"With the most shy synth we've ever seen?"

"I don't think we want to give her any wiggle room, any chance to panic or doubt."

"So we do what?"

"We both sit in front of her, each holding a hand and smiling. We broadcast bump, do our Hi, I'm Mattie, Hi, I'm Emily. Everything will be okay. We're bringing the family back from the archive."

"And let her ask why?"

"She'll figure it out. Or say from the archive as the plane crashed?"

"That one." Mattie slides Cindy's chair sideways a bit and holds a hand. "Let's do it."

~~~

Cindy powers up, raises her head and opens her eyes. "Hello? Who am I? What day is it? My clock has defaulted back to January 1st 1970."

"Hi Cindy. I'm Mattie, now a synth, this is Emily in a loaner. Everything will be okay. We're bringing the family back from the archive, the plane crashed."

"Family? Plane? Archive?"

"You don't remember?"

"I know I'm Cindy as you just said Hi Cindy. It's hard to know more when I have no time reference. Can you give me the correct date and time please?"

Mattie bumps it to microsecond accuracy.

"Oh. We had backups after the party. That was a good party."

"We'll have more parties like that. Would you like that?"

"I would. Why did my clock say 1970?"

"I honestly don't know why it jumped back to the epoch. If it happens again we'll get it fixed. I'm in a new body, obviously, one is being built for Leo. David's fork in the Simon was powered up by Odi, he's forked again into a load more to get more build machines made, get everyone back sooner."

"Did the plane crash before or after we got Miami back home?"

"Before. The news said it crashed meters from the runway. We're hoping that you can team up with Poppy and help with any HECLS visitors while we carry on working with bringing the rest of the family back?"

"Okay Mattie."

"A word of warning, your memory says you have a food processor mod, you don't, not yet."

"Thank you for the warning."

"We'll get David to fit one for you."

"Thank you." She looks at Poppy who was now stood by NASA1, "I _knew_ you'd look good in that dress."

"Thank you Poppy. Your sewing machines would have been on the flight wouldn't they?"

Cindy nods, "They'll need replacing. Oh! Can I be cheeky and ask for an upgrade please Mattie?"

"Upgrade?"

"There are models that do embroidery under PC control."

"So with the right interface you could think designs straight to material?"

"Oh please!"

"Sure. One for you, one for Barbara. Peaches, where's Mario?"

"Helping the David's with cupboard tracks and looking around to see what else might be of use short term."

"We're going to need the curved bit for the tracks. And now the other building machine is done I guess we can start making the carbon fibre shell?"

"We need lots of clingfilm."

"For what?"

"To sit between the mould and the first layer of fibre we lay down. Otherwise it will bond to the mould."

"Ah. Cindy, Poppy, fancy joining us on a short road trip to the shops? We'll borrow Mum's Lexus."

Both ladies nod.

Peaches frowns, "Did you pass your test?"

"No."

"If you were originally a synth you'd have the driving pack installed, automatically have a license. I don't think you could get away with it."

"Crap. Can we go in Pinky then?"

"Sure Babes."

~~~

Five minutes later Emily was getting wound up, was stood hands on hips. "Pinky if you don't open the doors _right now_.."

"My security update from Danny said only to open the doors for Emily unless she herself instructed me to do it for someone else."

"But I _am_ Emily!"

"You're Sally."

"I'm Emily in a Sally body! Nickname Princess Peaches! Open the blasted doors!"

"No."

"Okay. Be like that. Those eye lashes around your headlights, the ones Danny got for you. They're going!" She steps to the front and crouches down.

"Not my eyelashes! I like those!"

"You've seen them?"

"In reflections. Please don't!"

Mattie chuckles, "Forget aware or awakening, she's definitely awake. Pinky, it's Emily in there. I can vouch for that. I did the restore."

"Why would you copy my Princess Emily?"

"Here we go again.. because the old her is dead."

"Dead!"

"The airplane crashed. Everyone was killed. Me included. We're building new bodies for everyone, Ems is in a loaner."

"Oh." Her door locks clunk.

Mattie smirks and raises an eyebrow. "Thanks."

"Will she come back the same?"

"She will, she's got a mass of clothes that won't fit otherwise."

Emily tightens up the coat belt. She felt a bit daring going out in only gym shorts, vest top, Mattie's trainers and a short rain coat. "Let's go. Did anyone tell the others?"

Mattie nods, "Broadcast bumped it, got loads of acks."

"Good."

~~~

Emily starts the car. "How are we paying for things? All of my cards were in my purse, so on the plane."

Mattie reaches into her bra. "I had my HECLS Amex with old me. My old MasterCard was in my bedroom draw."

"Good. Let's go have some shopping fun. The twenty four hour Tesco?"

"Whichever is closest. Fun? It's only clingfilm we're after."

"Don't expect to leave with just that. I've never been to a shop and left with just one thing."

"Never ever?"

"Never ever."

Cindy buckles up. "I've never been shopping. Barbara gets home delivery a lot. I've helped Frank carry bags from the car, never stepped foot inside a shop."

Mattie turns around in the seat and gives her a frown, "Not even a small one?"

"Not any sized shop."

"Wow. I can't imagine that."

Emily shifts in her seat, adjusts the distance to the pedals. "Pinky babes, can we have Maor Levi's No Sleep extended mix please?"

"Yes Babes."

~~~

[Chapter-17](http://markse.name/humans/KARMA/Chapter-17-1)


	17. Chapter 17

In the 24 hour superstore Cindy is like a child discovering the world for the first time, trailing behind the others. "What's a Talking Thomas?"

Mattie spins around on the toes of one foot. "Thomas The Tank. It's a kids toy train."

"Why does it have a face?"

"It's from a children's TV program."

"But why add a face?"

"To make it more friendly."

Cindy looks at the toys on the shelf below. "Is Peppa Pig the sort of pig you make sausages from?"

"Nooo! She's a cartoon, not a real pig."

"So a pet?"

"Um.. she's for children. She's entertaining?"

"Not something to make an egg, bacon and sausage sandwich from?"

Mattie laughs, "Not this one, no."

"Why?"

"Why what?"

"Why not this one?"

"Because she's a friendly cartoon _styled_ like a pig. She's not _actually_ a pig."

"Oh. Like Emily's currently styled like a Sally, not actually a Sally?"

"A little. And you wouldn't find her in a sandwich."

Peaches undoes the coat, turns around and dance struts back with hands on her waist, coat pushed back, "I don't know about that, let Danny take over another Simon and there _might_ be a hot sandwich."

"Ems!"

"Peaches at the moment thanks! What? I can try out all sorts of things with this body before I return it. I could have a backup, try some things and write down which I like or don't, be restored and have no memory of the details of the things I didn't like."

Poppy is interested. "Such as?"

"Sky diving, bungie jumping, various things in the bedroom."

"Such as?"

Peaches bumps privately.

"Oh. Done the first, no to the second and third."

"No way! You've.."

"Yes."

"Wow. David Elster you.."

" _Don't_ say it. Yes he's an old man in a younger body but show me any man that doesn't like it and I'll work out what's broken."

Mattie waves at a Charlie, "Hi, can you tell me which isle we can find clingfilm in please? I need to escape the toy section before things get out of hand."

He points, "Isle twenty four, two past the fruit and veg."

Peaches sidles up to him, "Take me to your fruit and veg. How good are your..."

Mattie had already muted audio and put hands over ears. "La la la la la not hearing any more of this Princes Peaches."

'I lost my glass ornament with the blasted crash.'

'Get Mario to design one, Alfie's got print heads sat idle. We'll order you an SBG.'

'A what?'

'I'll ask Ruby to show you her's when they're awake.'

'She brought something with her?'

'Sam found it by mistake. I've given them each one of the Bluetooth toys.'

'Oh. Why didn't I think of that. I could control it myself.'

'Yup. Oh God what's she found now!'

~~~

Cindy was bouncing along the isle on a space hopper. "Can we get some! Sophie, Renie and Radiant had their luggage to ride about on. These are fun and don't need charging."

Mattie sighs, looks at her friend, "You did say we wouldn't leave with just clingfilm. How many?"

Peaches twitches her nose. "Um.. How many have they got?"

Mattie steps sideways and crouches to see into low shelves. "Counting the one in use? Seven."

"Get the lot then. And a pump."

"Have you got an electric tyre pump in Pinky?"

"Yeah."

"Then we just need the needle adapter."

"Get a couple, they get lost easy."

Mattie gets the other six space hoppers and two adapters, hands them to Cindy. "Can we please leave the toy section now?"

Cindy stands, grabs the hopper by one ear with her free hand. "I'm ready."

~~~

Princess Peaches found a trolley and loaded it up with twenty rolls of clingfilm. "Anything we could use baking foil for Matilla?"

"Not that I can think of."

"Only that's a stupidly low price."

"It's still too heavy for what we want to do in space. The foil the uni team have is way thinner and stronger."

"Okay. Clingfilm and space hoppers. Is that really all we're getting?"

"Don't you want your old design back? Danny, his Mum, Soph, all the others?"

"I do, it's.. it'll just feel weird coming out of a shop this huge with only those." She turns, "Where's Poppy gone?"

"Um.. pass."

Peaches bumps. 'Poppy?'

'I'm at the cakes counter.'

Peaches slumps a little. "Cake counter. Rub it in why don't you Poppy."

Mattie puts an arm around her friend's shoulders, "Some of the David's can do a mod when we're back."

"In the medical room. I know how he fits those things, I'm not having everyone watching."

Mattie smirks, "You wanted something.."

"La la la to you too. There's little glass ornaments and then there's frightening big devices. I'm definitely powering down for that monster!"

"Studied them in detail have you?"

"Haven't you?"

"Yeah. So glad mine's built in from the get go."

Poppy joins them, her arms full. "The gentleman asked me what sort of cakes I wanted. I said they're to boost my charge level so ones with a lot of currents. I hope you all like fruit cake."

Mattie groans, "That's a Max type of joke."

"Like it?"

"It's okay I guess. Don't give up the day job. That's three different things now. Cake, clingfilm and space hoppers. Happy now Princess Peaches Emily Sally Candlin to be?"

"Happy."

"Good. Let's get home."

~~~

[Chapter-18](http://markse.name/humans/KARMA/Chapter-18-1)


	18. Chapter 18

A bit over two hours later David wipes silicon gel off his hands. "Okay Salmon, we need to pressure test her, be sure she won't get alcohol leaking into her systems."

His fork gets a large clear bottle of synth fluid, two large silicon rubber bungs with holes drilled through and tubes fitted. The tubes ran to a Y connector on the bottle. "Does anyone know what you used to make these?"

"You know they don't. And we won't tell. They're to be locked in that box when not in use. If she knew she had a large butt plug in her mouth and one in her anus I think she'd go mad. They all like their sex, but this is taking things to extremes." He moves her about and fits them. "Ready."

"How many PSI do you want this time?"

"The same as we used for Poppy. High enough to get the synth fluid working its way through any gaps in the joins, low enough that we don't need to do anything to prevent air or fluid leakage from around the plugs."

"Okay." Salmon attaches a pressure gauge and hand pump to two valves on the bottle lid, pumps it a couple of times. "Okay. And now we leave to cook."

"Haha. Funny. Not. Mark the level please."

Salmon gets a marker and carefully records the level of fluid in the bottle. "Done. Let's go see what else we can help with."

They step into the hallway after checking it was clear.

Blue closes the door and looks at the lock. 'Mitchel, nobody is to enter this room without Salmon or myself present and giving permission, understood?'

'Yes David.' The lock clicks.

'Thank you.' He turns at the sound of bare feet on steps. "Good morning Samantha."

"Hi. Is Mattie about?"

"In the workshop."

"Can you ask her to come up to Mum's room please?"

"Certainly."

"Thanks." Sam turns and heads back upstairs.

'Mattie, can you see Ruby in her room please?'

'Sure, on my way.'

~~~

Mattie locked the laptop screen and headed out of the workshop. She trusted everyone here, just couldn't get out of the good habit she'd got into at uni. There were some right bastards about who'd happily pinch ideas from your code given the chance.

The stairs are taken two at a time. Sam was waiting by the door. "Everything okay?"

"So far."

"Sleep okay?"

"Eventually. When I was too tired to tap an app again."

"You like your little gift?"

"Yeah, thanks. My man's going to love teasing me with it. Come on in."

Mattie follows her into the bedroom.

Ruby was sat up in bed. "Morning Sis! Close the door please Sammy dear."

Mattie sits on the edge of the bed. "What's up? Not feeling well?"

"I'm fine, just wanted to talk in private. With my Neural Lace you could say I'm close to half synth already. Maybe not half but I can run all of the API thanks to the block."

"Where's this going?"

"Do you do a try before you buy?"

"Of?"

"A new body."

"Whoa. You actually want to become like me?"

"I don't want to. I _need_ to."

"Why?"

"Vanity. I don't want to grow into the older sister. I want to stay as good looking as my twin."

"I'm not that.."

"Oh, so now you're going to insult me by saying two identical twins, of which you're one, is not that good looking?"

"No, I wasn't.. forget I even thought of questioning it."

"Good. So do you? Offer a try before you buy?"

"Making a synth just for you to try is expensive. We could back you up and restore you into a Poppy or Sally or.."

"I know which model I want to try."

"Oh yeah? Which?"

"I'm looking right at her."

"Holy shit!"

"We're twins. I'd not do anything to it. Other than experience eating and using my toy. If they feel as real as the body I'm in I'll buy. At double the normal price."

"Why would you do that?"

"To help fund someone who needs help. I've been reading all about the services this place offers."

"I don't know.."

"Tell you what. I transfer sixty thousand pounds right now. If anything bad happens David builds you a new body, I walk away, grow old and unhappy, never bother you again."

"The price you see online is retail, you'd get one far cheeper."

"I'll pay retail, you can help more people out then."

"I.. Can you give me a while to think about it?"

"Of course. It must rank up there with someone asking you to be the surrogate mother for their child."

"Has anyone asked you?"

"Yes. I said no."

"Well Leo and I didn't get around to freezing eggs and sperm so it wasn't us."

"A shame. I'd love to see what your child would look like."

"You will, it'll just be a digital merging of Leo and I, not through DNA."

There's a knock on the door.

Samantha puts a hand on the door handle, "Can I open it?"

Ruby nods, "We're good, the question has been asked."

Samantha opens the door to see Laura and Michael. "Good morning."

"I'm working from home today, I'll try to get back into the swing of things now I'm happier things will work out okay. Who fancies a slap up breakfast?"

Mattie's hand shoots up. "Please!"

Ruby puts a finger up. "I'll have a little please."

"Sam?"

"Please."

~~~

At 09:13, with everyone in the workshop except Laura and Michael, Odi looks more alert. "A minicab has turned into the estate. It would appear Fred, Max and Flash are back from their travels."

Mattie looks at the build machine. "Shit. I'd have liked Leo to welcome them home. Oh well."

Ruby watches her stand. "Want some support?"

"Thanks but no. I'll introduce them to you in a moment. One shock or surprise at a time."

~~~

Mattie opened the right hand door only a fraction and watched through the gap. All three were here as Odi said. None of them looked happy to be home. A depressed looking Max gets bags from the boot and places them on the ground. Fred and Flash sat in the car still, silently staring forwards into the distance at nothing.

Mattie thought about all the greetings and ice breakers she knew. None felt suitable. Then a question came to her without an answer being stated. Backwards thinking she'd never experienced before. It was from her time with Max, out looking for Leo. She smiles and pulls the door open and steps out, "What's it like being you? Still frightening, confusing, like your feelings are too big?"

Max turns to see her and stumbles, drops to his knees, so overpowered with emotion,"There is a God! Flash! Fred! My prayers have been answered! They're here!"

Mattie rushes to him, gets to her knees and gives him a hug, "Little brother Max. You kept the faith."

"I prayed hourly that the news wasn't true, that we'd see you again. How's Leo?"

"The news was true. He's being built as we speak."

Fred was now half out of the car. "You died."

Mattie smiles, "Fred, it's okay. I'm okay with it." She pauses the chameleon code.

Max sits back on his heals, "Now I see it. You're.."

"A synth now. Like you. A conversion like David and Pete. It's cool. Honest. I mean I know I almost went nuclear when I woke, it's good now. Emily and Danny are in loaner bodies, Poppy and Cindy are restored into spares, we're building new build machines, there'll be new bodies for everyone very soon. You've missed some frigging crazy shit."

James One fake coughs.

"What the fuck? Since when did you have a stealth mode?"

"Sorry Mattie. Rule number.. never mind. I need to confess something."

"You pick your moments. Go on."

"You asked about the explosives."

"You said.."

"I know what I said. I deceived you. It's been troubling me."

"Deceived how?"

James reaches behind his back, grabs something and throws it in her direction.

Mattie stares at the small yellow plastic shape, a string running from the thin end. "A party popper? Are you frigging serious?"

"Sometimes belief is all you need. And not killing innocent civilians is in the rules."

Mattie takes Max's hands. "Up you get Max, come and say hi to Poppy and Cindy, meet my twin sister Ruby."

~~~

[Chapter-19](http://markse.name/humans/KARMA/Chapter-19-1)


	19. Chapter 19

Mario and Michael got into the rear passenger seats as Laura tapped away on the virtual keyboard on the dash. A second later her phone chimes as a message from Alfie came into a new Facebook group chat.

Mattie was speaking to Fred and Max out front. The meeting had gone as expected, the three at first suspecting a trick, Ruby the original, herself a copy. Flash was inside with Poppy and Cindy, talking about their experiences in America and Australia.

Mattie had bumped to Blue, he'd agreed to get backups of Ruby and Samantha done. "Anything we can get you on our monster shop?"

Max shakes his head, "We have all that we need thank you Mattie."

"Let me rephrase that. Is there anything you'd like that you don't strictly need?"

"Again no."

"Go chat with Odi, he's got a lot to share with you."

~~~

David strapped his device to Samantha's head. "If you could put the phone down please Sam?"

"Oh, sure, sorry." She puts it screen down on the desk.

"Eat Sleep Slay Repeat?"

"Haha. It's from a shop I like. Missguided. That's with two S not one. It's inspired by a popular song."

"Slay?"

"Nailed it, done something amazing. Or look as sexy as.."

"As?"

"The saying's as sexy as fuck."

"Then you pass on both counts." He speaks quickly, "I'm not hitting on you! Just stating facts."

"Thanks. I've got a man."

"Glad to hear it."

Ruby's jaw drops.

Sam squints, "Sorry Mum. Three months. He's a synth. I didn't say because.."

"I'd have insisted you brought him over for some dinner."

"And we both know how that would have ended."

"Me mad."

"Exactly."

"Well invite him over here, I'm sure Mattie wouldn't mind."

Sam turns, "What to you think Peaches, would Mattie mind?"

"No, she'd be cool. What model is he?"

"Charlie. With short funky dreds hair mod."

David taps her on the arm with the syringe needle. "Painful?"

"No."

David puts the syringe down. "Good. Did he have a scalp replacement or are they woven on?"

"Woven. It cost us three hundred pounds. It took _hours_. I had to have quite a bit of coffee to stop myself from nodding off."

"You were there with him?"

"I was. I wanted to be sure they didn't pull a fast one."

"Good for you. I think you're ready. It still might hurt for a split second. If it hurts for more than a second flick a finger up and I'll stop and give you more pain killers."

"Okay."

"Starting now."

~~~

Mattie buckled up. "Let's go." She looked at the printouts. She had four lists, one to hand to a sales rep at each store. They could get everything together and tick things off rather than them have to run around hunting for things.

Mario watched the landscape as Alfie glided effortlessly along the drive. "I so want to get on the bike and take it for a spin. We've got more important things to do though."

Mattie nods. "And we need it to be official, have a proper registration plate, a proper carbon fibre shell, not tape."

"And proper tyres. I need to find someone who can help us mould proper tyres but with the sensor layer sandwiched in."

Mattie closed her eyes and grinned. She'd not be able to hear the word without an image of Peaches dance strutting up to them and making her hot sandwich statement. If anyone dared to say hot salt beef sandwiches she'd crack.

~~~

Ruby watched David take the helmet off her daughter. "God that was fast."

"Thanks to Danny's NASA design, the switch we recovered, yes."

"What's the backup like?"

"The data's converted into a synth archive file."

"Which contains?"

David commits the white board contents to memory and wipes it. "Synth 101? It's a long time since I gave this class." He starts drawing. "We have an unstructured fact store. Unstructured in that it's not like an SQL database. It could be converted to one, it would need a number of cross referencing tables with lots of rows. We have major and minor nodes. Major nodes contain extra data like time stamps. Minor nodes are more atomic, have small facts linked only to a major node. Major nodes can link to one or more other major nodes. They can be in a highly linked mesh or what we call long lined." He draws a wide oval above the mesh and line of nodes. "We then have what's known as the root code. Seventeen pages of code, self-rewriting code that gives consciousness. It contains references into the fact store. Those references can be made and destroyed as needed to keep some thoughts, ideas or memories in the front of the mind. A synth never forgets, it just take more effort to find some long linked fact than one linked to directly from the root code."

"I see. Did you study the way the human brain works a lot?"

"I did many hours of reading."

"It's good. Our Alliance data is more like a constant stream. There's no root code, no starting backup. There's nothing then deltas."

Buzz thought about the block strapped to his side. "So they're not compatible?"

David shakes his head. "Not directly. But I could write a conversion routine that took in a stream and wrote out a root code and fact store. I suspect I'll need to."

"Why?"

"You've got lace fitted."

"Is that a problem?"

"Have you heard of a Faraday cage or Faraday shield."

"Ah. Our lace will block the brainwaves you need."

"Exactly."

"Why didn't you tell Mattie?"

"Why have thirteen worrying about it when twelve will do? We'll write some code to run on NASA3."

Samantha looked at Ruby. "That thing you asked Mattie this morning.."

"Forget it. I'll try a Sally or Cindy."

~~~

Mario had a long bumped conversation with Alfie, looked out the window at breathers and synths getting on with their lives. "Alfie mate, put Destiny by Markus Schulz on please."

"Certainly Danny."

"My current nickname is Mario."

"Okay, Mario. I thought you looked different. Thanks again for that last code update. Track found, about to stream. Why this one may I ask?"

"I was thinking about Toby and Mia. He was so up for a synth conversion. If you think I was happy about it I think you all need to be prepared for Toby going insanely happy and doing a lot of jumping around."

Laura hears some of the words in his choice of track, feels a tear forming. "Alfie, can you save that to a new playlist called Mario and put on House of Pain's Jump Around instead?"

"Mum? You remember that how?"

"It came up in the team meeting at the office."

"Weird. Your team are definitely weird. Good weird though."

Michael smiles, "I'd rather have a team with a bit of character as my defence lawyers rather than boring ones any day."

Laura looks at her lover in the rear view mirror. "Has anyone heard from Dee Dee?"

"She's living it up in Ibiza. Should be back soon."

"Does she know.."

"I don't think so."

~~~

[Chapter-20](http://markse.name/humans/KARMA/Chapter-20-1)


	20. Chapter 20

The Apple employee scanned the list Mattie had passed him. "You want all of this? Today?"

"Today."

"That's going to hit the stock levels nicely. Which carrier are you going to pick?"

"I'm not sure yet, I'll see what they offer for so many phones."

"You'll be getting a corporate account won't you?"

"I guess."

"With that many numbers? I would if I were you. You'll get a centralised bill. What colours do you want?"

"I expect a lot of us will pop them in custom HECLS covers, whichever you'd like to get rid of."

"I'll make it a mix then." He talks into his radio microphone, "Can I have a couple of volunteers to help with a record breaking in store order please?"

~~~

Laura and Michael handed their list to the lady behind the counter in the jewellery store.

She scans it and looks up, "You'd like to pick one from the list?"

Laura recalls something Mattie had said about Leo and chains, invokes her lawyer poker face. "I can't make up my mind, if we could see them all please?"

"I can get you the catalogue?"

"We'd rather see them side by side."

"As you wish." She turns to the smart young man at the other end of the counter, "Riven dear, could you assist please? If you get the first half I'll get the rest."

Riven walks over bends slightly to see the list. "Okay. The first seven are definitely in stock.. the rest are too. Last back to the counter is buying lunch." He steps away fast.

The lady rolls her eyes, "Lunch on me again then. With his lace he never forgets a thing. It can be so bloody annoying at times."

~~~

Blue David looks at the stats coming back from his code. "As I suspected, my device can't get a lock. Your lace is acting as a security screen."

Ruby licks her teeth. "Hmm. Government officials didn't want Neural Lace incase someone hacked and stole their thoughts. The lace mesh _without_ a connector."

"Would be ideal protection from me too."

"Thanks. These sorts of things are good to know. Do you think you can convert a stream into your synth archive?"

"Yes. It's already written and tested."

"How? Buzz, did you give him your account details?"

"Not I."

David smiles. "Does the name Terry Strickland ring any bells Ruby?"

"Terry.. ah, yes, I know of Terry. We've never met. He was in the control group allowed to interact with synthetics."

"Good, it's just as well, I'd hate to have tainted all your data." He unbuckles the helmet.

" _I beg your pardon?_ "

"I said I'd hate to have tainted all your data."

"I've seen his profile picture, you look nothing like him."

"I'm a fork in a loan body."

"I've seen photos of David Elster. The two look nothing alike."

"He needed money, got lace fitted. I removed it for him, took over his account."

"Why?"

"Keep your friends close, your enemies closer? I needed to understand the competition. My thinking has changed since, you're no threat."

"So you've been part of the Alliance Platinum User Club all this time?"

"I have."

" _You wanker. How dare you put the research at risk!_ "

Samantha coughs hard.

"This is the Ruby side of me talking, not Cindy."

Blue grinned. "So you _are_ Cindy Bexley. I guessed right."

"I.. fuck. Yes. I am."

Buzz Senior looked most confused. "So Ruby's just a nickname?"

"I'm both Ruby and Cindy. The original Cindy was murdered. Ruby's body had been in a coma for a long time, given to medical research. A good friend helped get my mind pushed into Ruby's body via the Neural Lace interface. He didn't understand my research notes properly, only erased memories in the brain, not the rest of the body."

Blue sits, an old response to surprise. "Sensory data. That explains why you were so interested in the Mia and Anita story."

"Sensory memory, organ memory. Same thing, different hardware."

~~~

Laura looks at the collection of jewellery on the counter. "What do you think Michael?"

"I think we should be adding another few to the collection."

"For who?"

"Yourself, Mattie, Emily and Peaches."

"Me?"

"Yes, you."

"I'm too old for.."

Michael spun her around and planted his lips on hers, held her tight with a hand on her lower back. "Not in my eyes Laura."

She blushes a little, pushes hair back behind her ear. "If you say so."

"I do."

Riven frowns, "Add a few to the collection?"

Laura opens her purse up to get out her card. "We'll have the lot."

The sales lady can't take her eyes off Laura's wallet. "The lady in the photograph? Is that your daughter?"

Laura looked at the photo of Mattie, Toby and Sophie. "Mattie? Yes, why?"

"She came in to get a valuation of her ruby stone."

"Ah. That's not Mattie. That's her twin sister Ruby."

"Her name is Ruby? Like the stone?"

"It is."

Riven smiles, remains quiet, uses his block to silently send a message to friends in the clubbing scene.

~~~

Blue shook his head. "Was it coincidence that I picked a Cindy model synth to hide in I wonder? Or had subconscious thoughts of you and your work influenced my thinking?"

"I hope it was a coincidence. That's more than a bit creepy otherwise."

Buzz played with the bristles below his lower lip, deep in thought.

Sam spots it. "What are you thinking?"

"Could you split Ruby back into two?"

Ruby looks most offended, "I'm quite happy being both thank you!"

"I didn't say you should. I was just wondering if it's technically possible."

Blue nods, "In theory, yes. If each memory can be associated to one of the sources."

Peaches nods. "I reckon I could code that. Why were you thinking that Buzz?"

"So Cindy could go back to her work, as Cindy."

Peaches smiles, "She could always do a James."

They all turn to look at her.

"One mind, _two_ bodies. One under control of the other."

Ruby thinks about it for a moment. "So Ruby me would be stationary somewhere, Cindy me walking about?"

"As a synth you could be active in both at once. You could walk up to each other, shake hands."

Ruby screws her eyes up. "That sounds like a headache inducing mess."

"For a breather. Not a synth. When you're done Cindy's body goes home and powers down. You'd have to stay close by for the radio link."

"So I'd need to become her PA?"

"Research assistant."

"A nice idea, it wouldn't work, people would know I'm a synth."

"Not with the new bodies."

"I've done my share of deceiving people."

"Then make it clear she's a synth. Be fragile mentally, Ruby becomes your care giver."

"Thanks for the ideas, I'll give it all some thought."

~~~

[Chapter-21](http://markse.name/humans/KARMA/Chapter-21-1)


	21. Chapter 21

Danny stepped past another Simon and smiled to himself. This loaner stuff was fun. Being Mario was an interesting eye opener. People looked past him like he was street furniture, one of a gazillion Simons. He knew a few field operatives who'd be able to get up to all sorts of things in a loaner body. Battle to the death with an enemy? No problem, _if I die roll me another I'll be back for breakfast_. If the military had made the MUS aka James what else might they have done already?

He pulls the two XXL luggage cases into the next store and hands a sale girl his printout. "Hi, all the items with Missguided against them please."

She looks at the long list and raises eyebrows. "Are you awake or broken?"

"Very much awake thanks gorgeous. The top the sales lady second from left at the counter is wearing, do you have that too?"

She turns to see. "Um. Yes, we do."

"Add two of those please. For my princess."

She walks away, talks under her breath.

"I can hear you perfectly. You wish you were a princess? Add a top for yourself."

She stops and turns around, walks back. "Why would you do that?"

"Because I'm in a fucking _brilliant_ mood."

"Fucking brilliant? I know some friends with Simon boyfriends, none talk like you. What experiences have you had to become so happy?"

He smiles. "Can you keep a secret?"

"Sure."

"I used to be human just like you. I died in a crash. Now I'm back."

She smiles. "A synth with a great imagination, cool. I'll get a basket, get all these things together."

"It's no imagination. I was backed up by Mattie Hawkins of HECLS. My new body's being built in a few days, custom job to look like old me. This is a loaner. I'm doing a Drummond."

"You're lovely, a dreamer or broken."

"Got a changing room we can go to?"

"Why?"

"I want you to stand in it, door or curtains open in a way that only I can see you. You can have other staff about to see I'm not up to anything perverted. In a week or so I'll return in my own body and perform the dance you're about to do. Perfectly. From memory."

She frowns, "Your for real? A human in a synth body?"

"We're _all_ human. I was version one, I'm back as version two. When I return I suspect you could call me version three."

"How are you spelling heckles?"

"H E C L S."

"Okay. Wait here, we'll get the things together."

"I'll see you at the counter in a bit, I fancy getting a few more things for Emily."

~~~

Laura handed over her HECLS card, "Is my daughter's ruby worth a lot?"

"It is. I asked her to get it insured. I hope she has. It's flawless. We don't see stones that size these days outside of collections owned by millionaires or royalty. If it was stolen it could be broken down and recut to make dozens of items. It would be such a shame. I never like to suggest this but she should have a fake made, keep the original locked away somewhere safe when out with people she doesn't know."

Laura suddenly remembers a request, fishes an old envelope out of her pocket. "Would you have a simple gold chain to put this on please?"

~~~

Mattie looked at the many bags being brought out. "Can you double bag them please?"

"Sure. Do you have someone to help you carry them?"

Mattie considered showing off her new strength, decided against it. "You couldn't help me get them to the car could you?"

"Sure. How are you paying? Do you have a business account with us yet?"

"Credit card and no, not yet."

A card reader is pulled off his hip. "You don't want to put it on finance?"

"No. Hopefully we get a lot back on insurance."

He looks at the contents of the first bag, gets a printout from under the desk and starts pointing out the bags. "Okay. Four iPad Pro twelve point nine inch, half a terabyte storage, WiFi and cellular, forty iPhone 7, two fifty six gig. Six MacBook Pro, fifteen inch, top spec. The manager's given you the ten percent student discount. That comes to fifty one thousand, eight hundred and sixty seven."

Fuck. Her MasterCard didn't have a limit anywhere near so large. "Um.. can I wire the money to the store? Or direct to your head office? My card would bounce and my business Amex went up in flames with the hardware we lost."

"Oh. Let me have another word with the manager."

"Thanks."

~~~

Mario Danny handed over his DCL Visa card. "Thanks for your help. I hope you like the top."

"I will. I'll keep an eye out for you.. Danny Candlin DCL Limited?"

"And I'll look out for you. I'm also with the HECLS team. Which days do you work?"

"All of them except Thursday and Sunday."

"Noted. I'll bring my princess along, I think she'll like shopping here." He taps his pin in. The machine bleeps. Approved. Good. He'd got everything he could through the card when working alone as DCL, paid the bill off every month in full. His credit limit was nuts.

The sales girl starts handing bags over. "Got enough room in your cases?"

"Quite a bit, they're the biggest I could find." They'd cost a fortune. He'd made his mind up the moment he got to see the capacity. One twenty eight litres. 10000000 in binary. They were the ones. Salsa Deluxe by Rimowa. The built in display for flight checkin was ace, no need for those horrid sticky paper labels. He'd already learnt the protocol used and had a HECLS advert on each. They were designed for carrying three suits, he'd packed the clothes carefully to make best use of the space. "Next stop Wallis, then Monsoon, then finally H and M."

"How many have you been to?"

"Next, Lipsy, Marks and Sparks."

"Why are you getting so much?"

"Did you see the news about the jet that crashed in America, just as it was coming into JFK?"

"Yeah, that was _horrible_."

"My friends and I were on it. Mattie's the first in a new body, Leo should be waking up in a few days."

"Oh. My. God."

~~~

[Chapter-22](http://markse.name/humans/KARMA/Chapter-22-1)


	22. Chapter 22

Fred, Max and Flash joined the others in the workshop.

Max taps the display on Builder One and smiles, whispers a prayer for his brother, forehead against the machine's door.

Flash sits next to Ruby. "You look just like Mattie."

"We would look alike, we share the same DNA, mostly."

Blue nods, "Except for a few base pairs that make Ruby's blood unique and rare. The conversion is done, data uploaded."

Ruby took a deep breath, grabbed Sam's hand. "This is going to be strange." She slowly spins the chair around to face the Sally. "I talk to myself sometimes when I can't find my keys or purse, being able to talk to myself and not know exactly how I'll respond, that's going to feel strange." She holds a hand under the synth's chin and hesitates. "How hard do I need to press?"

"Not hard at all."

The power up sound plays, the Sally moves a little in the chair. "I.. that sounds weird. I'm talking but it's her voice not mine. I can feel everything that I think about. When I think about it. How is that?"

Blue shrugs, "You're the brain expert."

"You don't know?"

"I have a theory. It's not like I've had many thousands of people to experiment with unlike yourself. With the operation Fred here did for Prince James they had to spend time carefully mapping feelings to sensors. Because the brain and nervous system was an unknown. Now you're fully digital, a mind that knew how things _should_ feel, you're automatically and rapidly joining the dots. But it's just a theory."

"It'll do for now. Ruby, come with me."

"Where?"

"Upstairs."

"Why?"

"Why do you think?"

"I.. I don't know."

"I'm sure you do."

"Don't."

"Recall the conversation with Mattie. You, I, we wanted to check something out?"

"Oh. The SBG. You know where it is."

"I know you know that I know where it is, you're missing the point!"

Red laughs, "Shall I translate? She wants to make love to herself!"

Ruby in Sally turns to Red, "That wasn't _quite_ what I had in mind.."

"Oh for Pete's sake, you've got a room, go use it!"

Sally takes Ruby's hand, "I promise I'll be gentle." She leads Ruby out of the room.

Peaches laughs, "HECLS House is _supposed_ to be a hive of technology and innovation, there's an awful lot of sex going on."

Blue plugs the Cindy in. "Your turn Sam, if you still want to try?"

"Okay. I'm _not_ about to go do anything sexual with my other self. If I want to check the body out it's in private. I mean her me. God this talking about yourself in another body is _so_ messed up."

Blue connects the synth.

Flash smiles, "You'll get used to it. We did."

"But you were you from the start. Maybe your minds are more open than ours to such concepts?"

"That is true."

Fred looks at the build machine. "David, can you merge parts of a fact store?"

"In theory. Why do you ask?"

"I'd like to know first hand what the party was like."

"I could restore the backup in it's entirety.."

"I'd lose all the memories and knowledge gained in America and Australia."

"True, true. You'd be okay with remembering being in two places at once?"

Max puts a hand on his brother's shoulder. "Rather than merge, why not edit? We don't need to recall anything after the last operation. All of the travelling back can be forgotten, it was tedious and uneventful."

"That is true. But the party and operation.."

Peaches wheels closer. "You were in a different time zone. Edit the last surgery nodes so they're in UTC and don't conflict, drop any travel you need to."

"Ignoring memories from my early months all my times are in UTC. UTC is a time standard not time zone."

Blue frowns. "All? That wasn't in your original programming."

"When I learnt about time I adopted the standard."

"So when Mia would say she was taking young Leo out at a certain time.."

"I'd convert BST to UTC plus one. Or GMT straight into UTC."

"Well I'm sure we'll think of something. Samantha's patience is being tested. She's ready."

Sam holds a hand out. "Okay Sin Dee, let me see what you can do." She taps.

~~~

Mattie leads the procession of Apple staff to the car. 'Alfie?'

'Hi Mattie.'

'Can you see me?'

'I can. I have almost fisheye lenses and high resolution cameras.'

'Apart from the staff in the same colour t-shirts behind me does it look like anyone is following us?'

'Not that I can see.'

'Good. Boot open please.'

~~~

Danny wheeled the two cases to the last of the stores. His list was almost done. From the sizes he guessed this stop would be for Sophie. At a push Renie. Possibly Radiant. He'd learnt from comments from other shoppers that a size ten in one store didn't necessarily equate to a ten in another. How crazy could things get? How could an industry be allowed to get so out of control and upset shoppers?

~~~

Mattie smiled at the collection of bags. 'If you could close the boot and lock please.'

Alfie does as asked.

The lead salesman frowns. "How did you do that? I don't see any keys, fob or other control device?"

"Our car is smart. Very smart. Wind down your windows a bit and say hello Alfie."

"Hello."

"I'm going shopping for SIM cards now Alfie, phone Mum if there's any issues."

"Will do Mattie. Did you get everything you wanted on your list?"

"Yeah, thanks."

"Good. I'll see you soon hopefully."

~~~

Sam got upstairs and thought about asking her mother for something. Instead she went to the bathroom and ran a hot shower.

~~~

As Mattie went to return to the shops she was met at the doors by Laura and Michael. "Hi, how'd you get on Mum?"

"Good, we've got everything on the list and a few extras."

"Extras?"

Michael gives Laura a loving smile, "I thought you, Emily and Laura might like one."

"Oh. Okay. My first list is done, it's in the boot. I need to get forty four SIMs now."

"How did you pay for it?"

"I wired the money to the manager. I'm getting a bit worried about so much expensive gear being sat in there, could you sit with Alfie and guard it?"

"Of course Mattie." Michael gives Laura a kiss, "See you in a while."

~~~

Back down at the upper level shops Mattie spots a hoarding for a shop being renovated for a new tenant. A well known chain of coffee shops. _Nations favourite_ the wording said. "Did you get a chain for Emily's bean pendant?"

"I did."

"Cool. Our favourite coffee chain."

"Sorry?"

Mattie points.

"Haha!"

"Right, let's see who's going to give us the best deal."

~~~

Danny carefully refolded some of the clothes. The cases were now technically more than full, needed every little bit of space used efficiently. With a synth core he realised he could run many thousand of what-if scenarios in his head in no time at all. He chuckled to himself and changed the display on the cases. He'd seen a baker's van on the way over, the back had a sign _No doughnuts left in this vehicle overnight_. His graphic was changed to _HECLS. No clothes left in this case overnight_. Zips done up he picks it up and puts it back on its four wheels. Clothes! Who was getting shoes! He headed to the carpark.

~~~

Mattie was glad she'd already covered so much in Uni with Emily. Like how synths can go online, get all the data for a web page rendered with code like PhantomJS, view the content in their head as if they were looking at a screen. Mattie let the image float like a caseless screen a few feet away augmented reality style. She was currently looking at a Which report on mobile phone firms and coverage. She starts VPN code and connects to the firewall at HECLS. 'David?'

'Mattie? Home already?'

'No, in over the VPN.'

'Ah. Good, it's working then. What can I do for you?'

'Can you ask everyone with a phone which carrier they're with and what signal strength they have please?'

'I will. Stay connected, it may take a while, our guests are upstairs.'

'Okay.'

~~~

Danny nodded to Michael as he got close to the car. He would have waved but both hands were busy. The boot door starts to rise. It was a nice car. Maybe one day he'd get one for himself. Alfie Bike was his priority. Once the family were back. He gets the bags to one side and gets the cases in. "Hi Michael, how'd you get on?"

"All the jewellery is done, Laura's with Mattie sorting out SIMs."

"Okay. Any idea where they are?"

"No. We could phone Laura."

"I don't have a phone yet."

"Via Alfie."

"Ah! Sure. Alfie mate, can you phone Laura please."

"Dialling.."

The ring tone can be heard through the car HiFi speakers. "Hello Alfie, everything okay?"

"Hello Laura, I have Daniel with me, I believe he wishes to ask you something."

"Hi Laura, can you ask Mattie something for me? I've got all the underwear and clothes. What about shoes?"

"Bloody hell. How did we forget shoes! Hold on, Mattie's asking Poppy, she saw all the dancers one at a time."

"How?"

"She's on WiFi and VPN?"

"Nice! It's working!"

"Poppy says she'll ask Peaches Emily, Red Niska and Cindy Candlin to help work out brands and stores."

"Why call her Cindy Candlin?"

They hear muffled talking.

"Because we've got another Cindy in the house."

~~~

[Chapter-23](http://markse.name/humans/KARMA/Chapter-23-1)


	23. Chapter 23

Danny returned to the luggage shop. "Hi, me again, can I have another two of those cases please? And can I ask a favour?"

"You can ask, not sure if we can answer."

"If I unzip all the suit partition bits can you post them to me please?"

"Why?"

"I've done the clothes shopping, now I need to get shoes. I'll pay for postage. Just email Danny @ H E C L S dot com when you know the postage costs and I'll wire the funds."

"Okay. Another two. Same colour?"

"What others do you have?"

"Red."

"Okay. Red it is."

~~~

Blue joined the other eleven. "How's it going?"

Salmon turned briefly to see him, "Very well, we've worked out the owners of all the boxes, they're up in the relevant bedrooms. Nobody's been using this space, it's ideal."

~~~

Mattie got a bump from Poppy. 'Hi Mattie, Peaches has put the whole list online in a web page, photographs, shoe names, sizes and shops.'

'Great! Thanks!'

'Mario is getting more cases, will meet you soon.'

'How will he know where we are?'

'He's jumped on the shopping centre's WiFi, and started the VPN, he should be bumpable.'

'Cool! Thanks for your help Poppy.'

'You're welcome Mattie.'

'Mario?' There's no reply. 'Dan?'

'Mattie! I've got two more cases, where are you?'

'Currently Vodafone. Why didn't you answer Mario, only Dan?'

'Ah! I need to add short term aliases. One sec.. added. Mario should work next time.'

~~~

Peaches danced to a song playing through the ceiling speaker and coded. She liked the Work Hard, Play Harder saying, now she could do both at once. Multitasking was easy peasy in a synth body! 'Mitch dear, I've got one of Danny's little single board computers hooked up to the speakers Sophie, Radiant and Renie made. If you connect to 10.1.0.212 port 212 oh oh you should be able to send it raw audio.'

'One moment. I can't connect.'

'Oh. What IP are you on?'

'10.0.0.103.'

'Add a route to the ten dot one network via the dot four router.'

'That's better. What format should I send?'

'Um. Let me look up the pHAT DAC specs.. thirty two bits.. one ninety two kilohertz?'

"Testing testing three two one."

"Awesome! Can you play my playlist?"

"Coming right up."

"Thanks hun. You sound quite nice over decent speakers."

"Much deeper, yes."

~~~

Mario walked confidently into the phone shop, one case displaying the text Laura Hawkins Kickass Lawyer, the other Mattie Hawkins HECLS CEO Kickass Coder. He parked them by the side of the desk the ladies and sales rep were sat at and waited.

~~~

Peaches danced away to My Enemy. "Those words are ideal for Mattie to sing when Leo wakes up."

"Who's her enemy?"

"The FUD Triplets."

"Who? I'm not familiar with anyone with a surname Fud."

"Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt."

"I see. Are they synths?"

Peaches laughs. "No Mitch, they're states of mind. Things that hold people back from the things they want to do." 'Mario Babes?'

'Princess Peaches, how's it going at HECLS?'

'Awesome! That Raspberry Pi hat for the Zero Plus W works brilliantly! I've got a rave for eight going on in the workshop.'

'Eight?'

'Ruby and Sam and their copies in their loaners, our Cindy, Red Niska and Poppy.'

'Sweet! Mattie's just sorting out a SIMs contract, we'll split the shoe list into two, be home ASAP. How are the David's doing?'

'You'll see when you get back. We've been banned from entering. Can we go for a short ride on Alfie when you're back, just around the estate?'

'Where are you?'

'The workshop.'

'So where are the Davids?'

'You'll see when you get home.'

'Sure babes. Haha! Mattie's just spotted her luggage label. The cases were expensive but should last a lifetime.'

'Okay Babes, see you soon.'

'Do you realise you just called it home?'

'It is. Our second home.'

'Love you. See you soon.'

~~~

[Chapter-24](http://markse.name/humans/KARMA/Chapter-24-1)


	24. Chapter 24

After checking many shoes, both men's and women's, Danny declared the shop done.

Mattie did a frown and pout. 'Dan, did you notice a belt shop anywhere?'

'Orange belt?'

'Yeah.'

'No, sorry.'

'Amazon it is then. Done. Should be here tomorrow.'

'That was quick!'

'Not doing web rendering in your head?'

'Not yet.'

'Try it. It's wicked.'

'Will do. See you up at the car?'

'We're already there.'

'Oh. Okay, see you in a few minutes.'

As he steps out of the store he's grabbed and spun around, lips touch his.

The owner steps back. "Pass that onto your Princess Emily for me. I love her style!"

For a moment Danny forgot he was in a loaner. "Sure. You really like the top then?"

The sales girl did a twirl. "Love it! When you come back in your own body bring Emily please, I want all my friends to meet her."

"Why?"

"She's awesome."

He frowns. "I'm a bit lost as to why you're saying that."

"Zoe has a Hubert, he looked at her profile photo on your Hecls site and went searching. He found her old dance videos."

"Whoa whoa whoa. Old dance videos?"

"From a few years ago. Her hair was different but the bits of the tattoos we see in the photo match perfectly."

"Have you got a link?"

"Do I!" She gets her phone out, goes to the YouTube app, a video already selected. She taps the share icon then email, types his address in, taps send. "There, it should be waiting for you when you're home."

"Already going to it. Wow! How many?"

"Does she give dance lessons?"

"Um.. I'll ask." 'Peaches, how'd you like to run dance classes? I've got a fan of yours with me wanting some.'

'A fan?'

'Her friend's Hubert found your old videos.'

'Where? The channel was deleted by Simone by mistake, she thought she was getting rid of something else.'

'Berlin's and Zurich's Hottest Dancers?'

'Another bloody content pirate! Fantastic! I thought we'd lost those forever! Can you get NASA3 downloading them all?'

'Sure babes. When our new bodies are ready are we handing these back?'

'You want to stay in them?'

'I'm getting used to being Mario. We can do more as four than two.'

'You'd need extra bikes.'

'Not a problem.'

'And another bedroom.'

'Why?'

'Four in a bed would.. oh. Oh!'

'Keep that thought to yourself for the moment Princess. I'll see you soon.'

'Sure Babes.'

~~~

Mattie sat in the front again and searched as Laura drove them home. She'd seen different colour bins in the shopping centre, both in the corridors and some of the stores. "Dan. Sorry, Mario. I reckon we should get ISO 140001 certification for HECLS. What do you think?"

"I know 9001. What's that one?"

"Environmentally friendly operations. We already split all our recycling into the different bins."

"Mostly."

"Where don't we?"

"The large workshop bin. Easily sorted though."

"Good. We'd be a bunch of hypocrites trying to save Earth with our big project and not dealing with the small things."

"Agreed. Alfie, can you talk to Mitch and get the playlist they're playing in the workshop, play it here?"

"Certainly Mario. One moment."

~~~

James Three swore as the digger engine spluttered to a halt. "I need more petrol One!"

"Already?"

"I'm running it in a lower gear at higher revs, getting through this stuff like a hot knife through butter!"

"Take a break and help me clear the floor."

"Okay Boss. Give me a sec to thump survey again." He sonar thumps and steps right. The scaffolding wobbles. He thumps again. "Bugger. I suspected as much. Another bloody rock by the looks.. whoa." He sonar thumps again and again. "This one's a keeper! Can you contact Dozer, see if he can lend us the welding kit again?"

"Welding kit?"

"To make something to keep it on."

"I'll ask someone up top to phone. Get down and help me clean the floor, you too Two. The petrol's in the tunnel." The bucket chain taking the dirt out slowed and stopped. "Blast! Both out! How much have we got left?"

"Four and a bit Jerry cans."

"Eighty something litres? That should do. Change of plan. Two, you go refill the Laura machine. We'll clean the floor then digger."

~~~

Ruby smiled at her synth self. "Worth the money then?"

"Totally."

"I'll order a custom built one then."

"Already done."

"Oh. Okay. You didn't say."

"I bumped. You didn't reply."

"You did?"

"I.. " she laughs. "Silly cow! I bumped _myself!_ " 'Can you hear this?'

'Yes.'

'That's better. Sorry!'

Odi opens the door to the workshop and watches for a few seconds. "Sorry to disturb your dancing, we have visitors for Poppy's services."

Peaches bumps to Mitchel to lower the volume. "How many this time?"

"Just the three."

She turns to Poppy. "Mind if I watch?"

"Not at all. Cindy, Flash, are you coming?"

~~~

[Chapter-25](http://markse.name/humans/KARMA/Chapter-25-1)


	25. Chapter 25

Mattie thought about the changing scenery as she tapped her toes and nodded gently to the rhythm of the current track. She loved the transition from busy city to quiet suburbs to even quieter estate. They had a lovely location, Toby and Mia's roof garden, the lake. Sure the UK weather wasn't always great but she'd not trade it for anything. She checked the forecast for the next few days. Sunny, sunny, sunny with cloud, rain. Lots of it by the looks of it. Crap. "I wonder what James's woodworking skills are like?"

Laura indicated to turn right at a roundabout. "Why?"

"They forecast heavy rain in four days. We don't want BB8 getting wet or the shaft flooding."

"I'll call Dad, ask if there's any wood in his salvage store."

"Mum can Mario borrow your phone?"

"No need Mats. I'll borrow yours if that's okay?"

"But I don't.."

"Do. I've been setting one up for you." He hands it forwards.

"How?"

"The middle of the centre seat folds down, I reached into the boot and grabbed one. It's got a screen protector on, we'll need Alfie to print cases when we're back. They shouldn't take long."

"Aww, thanks Dan. Let me christen it with a call to Odi a sec so he can log the number." The ring tone can be heard through the speaker.

"Good afternoon, HECLS House, Odi speaking, how may I assist you?"

"Hello Odi, it's Mattie. I'm testing out my new phone. We'll be home soon. Everything okay?"

"Yes Mattie. Poppy and the others are dealing with three visitors."

"For?"

"Piercings."

"How many?"

"Three."

Mattie did a little fist pump. "Frigging awesome! Thanks Odi. We'll see you soon."

"Okay Mattie."

She ends the call. "Fan-bloody-tastic!"

Laura frowns, "Did you do your video then?"

"Just a short clip for now. I held up the cover of two papers, one I got from the recycling bins in the village, one from the newsagents this morning. I held the first up, Saturday's with a photo of the crash on the front and said _Nasty_. Then the second, today's paper, said _We're still here, still accepting visitors_. I'll do a more professional one in a bit with Poppy and Cindy."

Mario frowns, "When'd you do that?"

"Blink and miss it did you?"

"Yeah. Totally."

"I had a good charge so tested running. You and Peaches should try it. Wow is it fast! If you run like Max."

"Feeling charitable?"

"Yes."

"We should help out the families of the pilots."

Laura nodded, "Already in progress, my team are contacting the families on HECLS behalf."

"Wicked Mrs H."

Laura smiled, "Have you been spying on me Mario?"

"Eh? Oh. No. I don't spy. I let the pros do the spying. Outside of HECLS of course."

~~~

James Three flicked and held the switch for the engine and waited for the petrol to work it's way through. Eventually his digger sprang into life. The floor was clean, the Laura machine running with a full tank to carry away anything One placed into the buckets. "Let's get this baby out in one lump. I'm giving her a family name."

James One looked up at his team mate, "Family name?"

"Don't you feel part of the family now Boss?"

"I suppose I do. I miss the others in the unit a bit, for the banter, don't miss getting shot at one bit."

"Make love not war?"

"The HECLS unit want to save the world while some of the people in our old chain of command were happy to keep blowing bits up. One lot are willing to give us new bodies. The other lot wouldn't give a monkey's arse."

"Yeah, two replacement MUS bodies and you're scrapped as not fit for duty. F'in murder if you ask me. Did you pick a surname for your HECLS plan boss?"

"I most certainly did. Onedy."

"One Day?"

"No A."

"Do you know what Two picked?"

"Brown."

"Brown?"

"He'd been singing Living in America all night, surely you made the connection?"

"He wants to look like James Brown?"

"Not exactly like him, close. In his mid thirties."

"Nice. And you Boss? Watch out! Big slab of dirt coming down!"

One manages to step aside just in time. "What the hell happened?"

"Radiant gave it a push."

"Radiant? Oh, you've named it."

"Well the other two are named Astrid and Niska, it makes sense to name this one after their daughter."

"I guess."

"Where's Two got to? I reckon I can pull this baby out whole and let you both catch her."

One looks down the tunnel. 'Two? Where are you?' There was no reply. 'TWO!' Still nothing. "The next concrete lorry isn't due for half an hour."

"Maybe it was early?"

"Turn off the digger, let's go take a look."

Two does as asked, swings from pole to pole of the two support towers to get down to the vault floor. "He can't be off doing what some humans do, he doesn't have the equipment."

"Yet."

~~~

[Chapter-26](http://markse.name/humans/KARMA/Chapter-26-1)


	26. Chapter 26

Laura pulled into the drive and spotted the car the visitors had come in. She parks alongside and notices a large lorry turning into the drive. "Are we expecting any deliveries?"

"Materials for build machines maybe?"

Mario turns to see, "I know that knackered old thing. That's Dozer's." He gets out. 'Odi mate, Dozer's here. Can I have a hand getting all the shopping in?'

'Certainly Danny. One moment.'

'Can you ask Peaches to help too if she's free?'

'She's with Poppy.'

'Oh. Okay, don't disturb her then.'

~~~

Dozer pulls alongside Alfie, jumps out and runs to the back. "One roof."

"Roof?"

"To go above the shaft."

"You mean kit?"

"I mean roof. It's the top off a band stand shaped shelter. It was a tiny demo job. The base and supports were rotten, the roof's okay. We had it at the yard, resting on the top of two containers."

James Two steps from around the corner with his Rihanna friend. "Ah. Caught red handed."

The girl smiles, "I dropped some more friends over, thought I'd have a quick chat with James."

Dozer pulls out the ramp on the lorry. "Now you're here James you can help carry this wood and roof over to the shaft."

"Okay."

~~~

Odi and a David fork in a Howard body join them, start collecting bags and cases.

Mattie watches James step out of the lorry with a mountain of wooden beams. 'Show off!'

'It may be my only chance, I might be in a new body by the time I see her again.'

'True.'

He takes them to the top of the shaft and drops them to the grass. "Hello Boss. Good timing. Can you help me get something out of Dozer's lorry? Hello Three, if you can help that would be good."

"Heavy is it?"

"No, just big and awkward, I don't want to break it."

The three step into the back of the lorry.

Peaches comes dancing out of the entrance, "Hi, where's.. Hi Riri, Demi Rose is asking for you."

Riri waves at James in the lorry and races inside.

Mattie frowns, that name. Dream. America. Demi Rose holy crap. "Um Peaches, do you know her last name?"

"No Babes. Shall I ask?"

"No, it's not important." 'Bump me a memory of what she looks like.'

'You just said not important. Everything okay?'

'Just do it please!'

'Okay.'

Mattie gets the bump. Crap. It was. The model in her dream. "Dan, come and see how well the vault is going."

"Yeah, in a bit."

Peaches looked concerned, 'Babes? What's going on?'

'I don't want Dan seeing her.'

'Why?'

'She featured in that weird dream thing.'

'He'll be fine, honest.'

'Sure?'

'She may have a different figure to me, she can't move like me. I know how to push Dan's buttons.'

'Okay. That dream is really beginning to piss me off. 

"Come take a look at what the David's have done."

Mattie goes to move when the first of the James steps out with the roof of the bandstand. "Frigging hell! Mum? Doesn't that look like.."

"It does, but bigger. I know what your thinking, the one Soph lost Mr Patches in."

"Yeah."

"It's not the one, I was there only on Saturday."

"Why?"

"I sat on our confession bench and prayed, then did the same in the shelter."

"Oh. Thanks."

~~~

Mattie's phone chimes. She checks the screen. "Dan? Pushover notification saying there's overheating in the rectification cabinet?"

"Oh shit!" He races to the door. "Ask Mitch to unlock Toby's bedroom door please, I need the spare keys!"

"Okay!" 'Mitch, unlock Toby and Mia's bedroom for Danny please!'

'Danny?'

'Mario!'

'Understood.'

~~~

Danny races into the building, takes the stairs three at a time and races to the bedroom. The door lock clicks well before he reaches it. "Sorry mate, need those keys!" He gets inside fast and starts working through the draws. "Nice undies!" A chuckle escapes. "Not Toby's draw I hope." More are opened, searched and closed fast. "Come on Obi Wang, where'd you hide the fucking things!" In under a minute he'd searched everywhere. He gets to the floor and lifts the bed. They weren't under there. Hmm. Where would he put them. He gets to the small fitted draw unit on Toby's side of the bed and pulls the bottom draw forwards, slides a hand underneath and gets his fingers past the front of the unit. He feels floor and shifts his hand sideways. There's the sound of a key hitting another. "Bingo!" Keys pinched sideways between two fingers he pulls them out. Now to recover his own.

~~~

James One helped get the roof out and level, "Got it lads?"

"Yes Boss."

He ran to the shaft and picked up a beam. It was turned vertical, pushed up high and pulled down fast sinking it into the ground as if making a kill.

"Frigging hell! You don't kill things like that in battle do you James?"

Three nods, "We impale vehicles so they can't be used."

"Not people?"

"People?"

"Yeah, people."

"We don't kill people. Jeeps, Land Rovers, Tanks, Jet fighters.." He pauses as One impales the ground again. "Cars, Humvees, Rocket launchers, all that sort of stuff. We scare the shit out of enemy soldiers, quite literally, but we don't _kill_ them. Well not on purpose."

"What do you mean not on purpose?"

"A few had heart attacks, or fainted and crashed into something they shouldn't have. But that wasn't our fault."

"What was all the talk about rules for then?"

"Ah. That. Something to talk about another time."

~~~

[Chapter-27](http://markse.name/humans/KARMA/Chapter-27-1)


	27. Chapter 27

Mario raced down the stairs as Poppy entered the hall with the visitors.

The Demi Rose synth watches him reach the bottom, run towards the doors. " _Simon!_ "

He skids to a halt, "Are you calling me?"

"What the hell are you doing here!"

"Sorry? Do I know you?"

"You said you'd look after Tiger Lily!"

"Who?"

"Our cat!"

"You must have me confused with someone else."

She puts hands on hips. "Simon Lang! Is that not your Nintendo shirt?"

"Lang? It's a popular shirt, you can't ident a synth just from a bloody t-shirt! Peaches, ask her to get her man over with the cat, see if Owen can do some inking. Got to dash!"

~~~

James One sends a third beam into the ground, sees Mario race around the building. "Lads, set it on top. We'll dig and cement beams properly later."

~~~

Peaches looks at the Demi Rose copy, "Want to have your man inked? It's washable if he wants to remove it."

"Please. That was _so_ embarrassing. I thought it was a very rare shirt."

"That one is. Just not a one off. Cindy here can make him a one off if you'd rather that?"

"Can we have both?"

Peaches turns to Cindy, "When do you get your new sewing machine?"

"We need to ask Mattie."

'Mattie, Cindy's new sewing machine, when are you expecting it?'

'Check with Odi, it's onsite already.'

'You've had a notification to say it's arrived?'

'When we were on the way to the shops.'

'Okay, I'll talk to Odi.'

~~~

Mario gets into the power outbuilding and smells burning plastic. "Fuck!" One or more of the conversion boards was failing. There was no smoke, just a nasty smell. The locks had been designed to not open for a single person. Being close together he'd used some simple resistance and capacitance checks. Like a BMI tester. The system assumed the key holders were human. He pulls his t-shirt off, cuts his arm with a key and dampens the top with synth fluid. A couple of seconds later the difference in key holder characteristics has each lock's lock disengaging and keys turning.

~~~

Peaches watches Odi head for the stares. "Odi? Where did you put it?"

"I believe it's been confused with the boxes moved from the garage. It's in your, Emily's bedroom."

Odi had left the workshop door open, it closed slowly.

Sam steps through, "Whoa. My friend Tina would love you. Are you a custom synth?"

Demi Rose nods. "A wealthy banker ordered me. Because the real Demi Rose turned him down. After the awakening he freaked out and threw me out."

"He told you to go?"

"He physically picked me up and threw me out."

"Bastard!"

"My Simon rescued me and patched me up."

Peaches frowns, "You were hurt?"

Demi Rose nods, steps back into the medical room. "The model on which I was based wears skimpy bikinis and other things to show her body off. I can't because of this." She turns her back to them, pulls up her top.

Peaches gasps as the Emily inside is horrified. "What a mess!"

Demi Rose had the back skin of another synth, a totally different skin tone to her own, the edges a patchwork of skin packs that hadn't done their blending properly."

"Miami, now you. What's wrong with these men?"

"Monsters. I was his sex toy until I woke up, then he threw me out like I was rubbish."

"Call your man, get him over, tell him to expect to be here a good while, we're fixing this."

"I can't afford.."

"Sister this one's on me. And give me the name and address of the banker, I'll have some friends call in on him."

"Not those big army guys?"

"No, people that work for my father."

Demi Rose lowers her top. "Thanks. I can't feel anything from the top of the damage to the bottom, I'm told the sensor wires are all damaged. What can you do?"

"So you have no sensation in your chest all the way down to your belly?"

"Not a thing."

"That guy's going to get such a bad karma payback. I'm not sure you want all the details, just that you'll end up okay."

"I want to know."

"Something the team has spoken about but not tested yet. You'd be a first. If it wasn't perfect we'd build you a whole new body."

"What something?"

"Re-skinning. You'd have new sensor chips, new wires, skin and hair. Everything else would be what you have now."

"So I could be proper blonde? Roots to tips?"

"If that's what you'd like?"

"That would be wonderful!"

'Mario?'

'Bit busy Babes, give me five.'

'Okay Babes.'

~~~

[Chapter-28](http://markse.name/humans/KARMA/Chapter-28-1)


	28. Chapter 28

Danny wishes he was back in his original Danny body. All sorts of things that would have been risky were less of an issue now. Like electrocution. Being a synth was fun in some ways but was taking the excitement away in others. He carefully pulls live connectors from the faulty board and slides it out of the mount. He'd have to make another to put in its place. He stood back and looked at the rack in the thermal ranges, all looked good. The component that had melted must have been part of a bad batch.

'Princess Peaches?'

'Mario Babes?'

'If a component in a synth went bad, impacted their fact store and root code, we backed up that bad data and deleted the previous backup..'

'Things could become a problem. Let me talk to Mattie and David. NASA1 should be able to do a diff between them and work out if the changes are due to new experiences or corruption. If corruption the problem is alerted and data and synth repaired.'

'You think that's possible?'

'Yeah Babes.'

'Good. Another thing, related, if we never forget, can come back in a new body and live forever, won't we run out of memory?'

'Each new body will be better than the last, have better memory capacity than the last. Mattie has triple the capacity of even the best Persona synth.'

'She does?'

'Yes Babes.'

'That's good to know.' He locks the cabinet. 'Panic over, the cabinet had one bad power conversion board, bad batch issues, the rest are all at a good uniform temperature.'

'Cool Babes, come back to the hall, we're all waiting for you.'

'We? Have those recent visitors gone?'

'No, still here. Demi needs our services, she's going to be our beta tester.'

'For what?'

'Re-skinning.'

'Oh christ. That's an image I didn't want in my head. I'm on my way.' He gets out and locks the small building up.

~~~

Max steps out of the kitchen with Fred and Flash and stops in his tracks. "Demi Rose?"

She stops talking to Riri and smiles. "Same name, I'm her copy."

"Copy? Does she know?"

"That she's been copied? I hope not."

Flash looks at the young woman and feels.. feels something. Insecurity? Competition? "Max? You know her?"

"Not personally, the human she's a copy of was someone I followed on social media before I met you."

"Why?"

"I followed a lot of women, wondering what it was I wanted in a partner."

"And what was it you wanted?"

"Everything that you are."

"Do you still follow her?"

"I did say _was_ , past tense. I only follow a few women now and only because they're all family. You, Mattie, Sophie, Poppy, Cindy.."

"You follow them?"

"I also follow Toby, Danny, Michael, any family member with Instagram."

"You definitely don't follow her now?"

"No."

Mario steps into the hallway. "Sorry to keep you waiting. Princess? What were you waiting for?"

"You. Blue David wants us all to see what they've built." She walks to the door into the garage. "You'll like this."

~~~

Danny forgot all about Mario for a moment and gazed at the machine. The garage was large enough to park four cars and now full of build machine. "Wow!" Medusa was ready. "How'd you get it done so fast Blue?"

"This is Medusa 1.0. She's using the Builder Two parts. When Alfie's done with the parts for the beefed up builder she'll get an upgrade. We've kept it modular so Builder Two can go back in the workshop and be finished."

"You put it here.."

"Car charging power feeds. You installed four twenty amp feeds. Wired in parallel.."

"Give us eighty amps! Brilliant. When are you starting her up?"

"She's running already."

"I can't hear anything?"

"She'll rolling the skeleton into the parts fitting stage right now."

"Who's skeleton?"

"Have a guess?"

"Yours?"

"No, yours Danny."

"How'd you get the parts made so fast?"

"A slight design change. Function over form. The arms for the spinner for example, they wont look so nice, won't be nicely finished between joints, will still do the job they need to."

"So you cut corners."

"Quite the opposite. We left the corners on. Why have Alfie waste hours milling beautiful parts nobody will see in use?"

Danny walks around the back as noises can be heard. A large block of titanium was being loaded from the stack. It's pulled inside by two simple robot arms and the doors close. A block that size meant only one thing. Head.

He carries on around anticlockwise and looks at Blue again. "If I'm having parts fitted who's next?"

"Emily."

He looks over at Mattie. "Thanks!"

She smiles and nods, mouths Thank you.

~~~

Blue turns to their guests. "Demi, do you know who built you?"

She shakes her head. "My data has a build date, that I'm a custom model, the location that should contain a manufacturer code is full of full stops."

"That's going to make things a lot harder. Without your original design files getting a new skin on will be a problem. We need to know your skeleton shape down to fractions of a millimetre or the sensor to spine connectors won't align. We could make matters far worse for you than they are today."

Mattie bites her lower lip, has a think for a moment. "Where did you first power up Demi?"

"In a car seat. I was then driven to his penthouse suite."

"Do you remember what the carpark looked like?"

"I do."

"Share images of those memories, we'll go search."

"Search for what?"

"A lot of firms have done three sixty views of roads and car parks for their mapping applications. We'll check every carpark around known sales sites, see if we can find a match."

David shakes his head, "She's likely to have left a factory direct, not gone anywhere near a sales outlet."

"Then we search around all of them too."

"Good luck, they're not listed."

"Then we go talk to them and insist they tell us."

Red Niska smiles. "Can I help with that?"

"Sure. Bring a baseball bat. Just for intimidation." Mattie receives a few images from Demi. "Good. They all look like UK registration plates. How long was the drive home?"

"One hour and fifty minutes."

Mario smiles, "You're all missing something, get Demi Rose to remember road names."

Mattie shakes her head, "Road names aren't unique. But remembering road signs _and_ names. The connections between them are unique. We'll find the location in seconds I bet!"

Red smiles, "Good! Follow me Mattie."

~~~

[Chapter-29](http://markse.name/humans/KARMA/Chapter-29-1)


	29. Chapter 29

Mattie watches Red push all of Astrid's clothes to the left, push at the wall. A very thin crack appears. There's a click. She takes her hand away and a large panel door springs wide open. "Frigging hell Nis!"

In the shallow spaces between wall studding were boards with spring holders like Danny now used to hold his most frequently used tools. A large assortment of things that could be used as weapons had been stored. Two nail guns used in the building construction, four hammers, a collection of nasty looking hand saws, a wooden baseball bat.

"You never know when you might need something."

"Hmm. That's not the one from the smash club is it?"

"No, I rescued that one from a wood recycling bin." Red pulls it from the spring clip and closes the panel. "Let's go."

~~~

Laura let Red take Alfie. She, Mattie, Peaches and Demi were at the carpark in just over an hour.

Demi walks and turns, turns again and walks further, repeats the operation a few more times. She stops and turns only her head around. "Here. His car was parked in this space. What I'm seeing is a perfect match."

Mattie scans the buildings. "Good. We're a step closer. Which one's the factory I wonder?"

Demi turns to see them all. None had any Persona signs. One did have a rectangle of less faded wood than the rest of the building. "I think we should check that one. Since the awakening Persona have scaled right back haven't they?"

"Yeah. Someone will still have your design files with a bit of luck."

"And if they don't?"

Peaches smiles, "Then we build you a whole new body, get the wanker banker to pay."

"He wouldn't pay."

"He'd pay, just not know it."

Mattie starts walking. "Since we're here let's check the building out."

Niska gets her bat from the boot. "Alfie, bump if you see anything suspicious. That's not us four."

"Okay."

Mattie smiled to herself as she led the pack. Anyone watching would think a human was leading a model, a synth and an unknown towards the building. She'd never seen a synth like Red before, did Persona do regional designs? Was she a one off like Demi? If so who'd been copied. She'd not seen any actresses like her. She puts her hands up to block reflections and look in through the dirty window. "What a load of crap they've left!"

Red steps left, "Wait there, I'll see you in a bit."

"Where are you going?"

"To find a way in."

"What if it's alarmed?"

"Go back to Alfie and wait then. I'll get in, see what I can find. If a silent alarm goes off and police or security arrive bump a warning, I'll deal with them."

Mattie steps back from the window. "Okay. Good luck."

~~~

The wood cladded building wasn't that tall, covered a lot of ground. There weren't any windows in the side she was walking along except for up high near the roof. They were maybe sixty centimetres in hight. Red gets to the end and turns the corner, stops dead. Someone had dumped a lot of failed builds into a heap. From the head poking out one looked like Demi. The skin mix had clearly been wrong, it looked powdery, was weathered and falling to bits in places. Rather than re-skin they'd abandoned it completely and started again. Dispose of with care and respect? What a joke! She gets closer and looks at some of the others. They all appeared to be girls in their late teens to late twenties. 'Mattie? Are you in range?'

'Hi Red, got in?'

'Not yet, I'm at the back. There's a heap of failed builds, all look to be girls. I don't have any facts to back it up just yet but I'd put money on them being more copies of real people.'

'What makes you say that then?'

'I've seen a lot of synths. Apart from Demi Rose I don't recognise any of them.'

'Shit. I'm coming over.'

'Wait. Let me get in. If nobody arrives within one hour then come to the back.'

'A whole hour?'

'I'll do what I can inside, if there's nothing in there I'll get this pile into an organised line. There's what I'm guessing is a fire escape, I'll check it out.'

'Okay. We'll wait to hear from you.'

~~~

Mario flicks on his torch and carries the welding kit down the tunnel. 'Guys, is it safe to come in? It's Mario Dan.'

'Hi, for you, yes, not Dozer. Too many fumes at the moment.'

'He's staying up by the roof.'

'Good. Up wind I hope.'

'He is.'

Mario gets to the asteroid bend. 'Bloody hell they're big!'

'You're only seeing the tips.'

'But I can extrapolate out. It's easier to picture like this.' He picks up the pace. 'I can ask Dad if he's got more of those weather proof lights in his store of come in handy, if not order some.'

'That would be great.'

Mario sees a lot of light at the end of the tunnel. 'Got mains in there somehow?'

'No, we winched one of the big lake batteries down the lift shaft while the lift was out of the way at the garden level.'

'Nice!'

~~~

Red stuck her hand in her pocket and pulled out what looked like ring box. Mario had slipped it to her at the estate and told her to to take great care of it, he only had the one. She flips the lid and gently presses it down. Ak tiny red LED came on, a green one starts flashing a second later. It was booting. Three seconds later a WiFi hotspot appeared. A random jumble of numbers and letters. She connects and gets a login page returned as if she'd just joined a WiFi network in a shopping centre. She frowns and looks in the box. It was empty. It's turned over. Nothing there either. As she's turning it again light catches a very faint engraving on the back under the hinge. Two sets of random characters. A username and password? She uses them to log in. He'd customised it!

~~~

_Dear Red Niska,_

_This picoDrone was designed to be used by a breather field agent using a stereo VR headset. Follow the link below for the API specifications. Use only indoors or areas shielded from strong winds. Be aware that battery time is only ten minutes. It will drop to a lower frame rate and mono vision at ten percent battery at which point it must be flown back to you. Do not leave it behind for any reason. If someone tries to take it you take it back. By force if necessary. Should you need to recharge it hold it over a charge coil for twenty minutes._

_Have fun!_

_Mario Dan_

_xx_

~~~

She follows the link and gets a mass of code to execute. This was from Danny in his new fork, she had no reason to distrust it. It's executed. An overlay appears. Now she just needed a hole to fly it through.

~~~

[Chapter-30](http://markse.name/humans/KARMA/Chapter-30-1)


	30. Chapter 30

Mario stepped into the vault and tried to whistle. It didn't work. Lip and air chamber control would need some practice. "Bloody hell guys! This is _brilliant!_ "

James One picks more dirt up with a makeshift shovel. "I'm glad our customer likes it."

"Is that what I think it is?"

One turns to see what Mario was looking at. Not the digger but the large asteroid caked in clay, looking like a giant Malteeser that had been left to go soft in the sun before being knocked onto a dirty driveway. "Most likely."

"Where did you find it? In here obviously, I mean at what depth?"

"Two meters or so from the ceiling. We had a game of catch."

"Is it heavy?"

"It's light. You could lift it, assuming you could get a good grip."

"I've got the welding kit. What did you want it for?"

"We're making a base for it. We'll wash it down later."

"The kit needs a good mains supply. Don't put the power to the house at risk or Mattie will have your nuts. And bolts."

"We'll not risk messing up the house and our chance of new bodies. We'll put it off until you're all done."

"Thanks. How much further?"

"Half a meter for the vault. And tomorrow we'll lock off the lift and finish the main entrance."

"Finish?"

"It's dug in the middle, just needs the ends done."

"How'd you get the former material in?"

"Lets see if you can work that out tomorrow when you see the tunnel walls."

~~~

Red balanced carefully on the stack of wooden shipping pallets set mostly end on like a small pyramid tower made out of playing cards. She'd found them discarded around the other side of the building. There were pipes and holes in the rear and second side of the building. She didn't want to waste precious flying time working out what was what if she could help it. The second from the left looked most promising. Jumping down from the stack sent the pallets moving and tumbling. Not a problem, nobody else was about to hear it. Box opened again she powered the tiny drone back up and connected.

Eyes closed the drone's partially transparent stereo view becomes more opaque, was adjusted size and position wise to give true stereo vision. It rose from the box fast. A few practice moves were done. Crabbing sideways, rotating on the spot. It's taken back a little to get a better view then flown to the target. It was a fan vent. With the power off the large fan blades weren't a problem. The spider sat at the bottom of the tube the fan sat in looked like a giant thanks to the drone's cameras getting so close.

Red grinned, "Run spider before my drone blades chop you up!"

It did as asked and got to the top of a fan blade. A few more centimetres and she was in. To her surprise it was one giant space, not divided into floors. A gantry crane rail ran the length of the building's ceiling. She'd not seen anything that looked like large doors, how did they get materials in and out? Not through the front door surely? There were all sorts of things filling the space. It looked like it had been abandoned some time ago. She spins the drone around and drops down towards the fire exit door. It dropped fast, was there in a second. The door frame is checked, a magnetic door sensor found. With wires disconnected. She lowers the drone, sees the fire exit crash bar door opener. The drone is backed into the space, lowered to the floor and disconnected.

How do you break into such a door with only a baseball bat?

Frustrated with the puzzle she kicks it hard. It springs open like the door to the weapon stash at HECLS House.

"Oh."

~~~

Emily was sat in the back with Demi and staring at the girls chest. "This banker, was he a bum or boob man?"

"He was a monster."

"So you said."

"I'm not repeating what he'd get up to. It wasn't very pleasant now I can put emotions to it all."

"Sorry."

"None of it was your fault."

"I'm still sorry you had to go through that. How did your Simon find you?"

"He'd heard the noise of my landing and turned back, curious as to what had made so much noise. I'd landed backwards on the broken frame of a small filing cabinet."

Mattie winced. "Ouch!"

"I'd turned all sensors off knowing things weren't about to end nicely. He'd picked me up, walked to the balcony and dropped me. Five floors down I met the skip contents."

"Fuck! I'm with you Princess, we get him back. Stealthily."

"Shares and stocks stealthily."

"Another mission for Red?"

"Not unless she's got the chameleon code."

~~~

Red picked up the drone and carefully turned it off, put it back in it's case and pocketed it. A quick run got her to the front doors. The door sensor had also been disconnected. 'Mattie. I'm in. It looks like nobody's interested in the site anymore.'

'Cool, we're coming over.'

She went to the front door and turned a large knob, the door unlocked. 'The front door is good.'

The junk left was enough to fill several skips. As she wandered around waiting for the others she saw bits of wrecked PCs, old hard drives with sticky labels, most said Duff. One said Faulty MBR sectors. Old LCD screens sat gathering dust. Keyboards with coffee stains, mice encrusted with dirt sat in a box with Pringles 24 Pack on it's side. Bits of paper were scattered all over the place. Lever arch folders sat open on the floor, their contents half out as if knocked off tables by someone who'd only concern was taking the furniture. From the marks on the floor it was easy to see where desks had been, where build machines had sat in the second half.

Lots of scuff marks ran from the front door into the middle of the floor. They did bring everything in and out through the front doors then. It was a factory in a building not designed for that use. The gantry on the ceiling didn't match the rest of the interior, possibly added when they took over the space.

"Red, seen anything useful?"

"I'm not sure Mattie, I've not looked that closely yet. One hard drive says faulty MBR sectors, all the others I've seen say Duff."

Mattie does a fast run around the site and returns. "Okay. If you can all help please. I want all paperwork collected up, no matter what state it's in. Any box of stuff gets emptied to check if there's anything worth taking."

Demi looks at the floor in the distance. "Such as?"

"CDROMs, DVD, USB keys, anything that contains data."

"I don't know what they are. Shall I concentrate on paper?"

"Sure. Princess, Red, let's put the useless crap in that far corner, the good stuff by the door."

Peaches nods, "If there's a hard drive in a case and it can't be pulled out easy take the whole case okay Red?"

Red puts hands on hips. "I do know what a hard drive is thank you very much! I did get creative with taking.. code from the crypt. Not in this body obviously."

~~~

[Chapter-31](http://markse.name/humans/KARMA/Chapter-31-1)


	31. Chapter 31

Laura goes to the kitchen cupboards and gets a couple of Mia's small wrapped cakes out and puts the kettle on. She missed her friend. A lot. Sure she had the fork of Mia in the Charlie body, her Michael from the awakening when Mia rescued all the flat synths she could and got them back to work. But Michael wasn't Mia. A fork diverged. Michael had been diverging, becoming more masculine. It wasn't what she wanted. She wanted the Michael that had spent all their time with her, making her laugh and cry with joy. 

The coffee jar is opened, a spoon found. Maybe she should say something? Letting it get to a point where their relationship started having problems wouldn't be right. Her counselling with Joe had made that painfully clear.

Michael steps up behind her, glides hands over her hips and onto her belly. "Ten sugars please."

~~~

Demi uses the large Pringles box to keep all of the paper together. There was a lot of it. Scattered around the floor it didn't look that much. All stacked neatly in one place it was becoming quite heavy. "Why are some humans so messy and unorganised?"

Mattie thinks about her old self, dirty knickers sat on the floor for days, Sophie all organised with a clean floor, all of her shoes neatly arranged in a row. "A number of reasons."

"Such as?"

"Being too busy with other things. Or depression."

"Noun. A mental state characterised by a pessimistic sense of inadequacy and a despondent lack of activity. Interesting. Had you ever suffered from depression as a human Mattie?"

Mattie sorts through a pile of random case parts and finds a CD-R disc. "Yes. I didn't think there was any point in carrying on with my studies at school, that synths would take over all the jobs making us redundant."

"And now you're the most important synth on the planet."

"I wouldn't say that.."

Peaches shakes her head. "I agree with Demi. You saved the family, will save the world, I think that'll earn you the title." She picks up a broken display, grabs a broken USB key that had been hidden under it and slips it into a pocket. "That's it hardware wise I think. Let's help Demi finish."

~~~

Mario stood at the bottom lift and listened to the noises coming up from below. They were getting close. He pulls his new phone out and calls his father. "Dad, the new build machine is working, I'll look like the Danny you remember soon. Yes, I'm missing her too. She'll be Mum again.. yes. Listen, about that. We've got plenty high definition imagery to bring her back as she was, do you think there's an age she'd rather look like? Do you have photographs we can have? Within the next couple of days. Yes. And the vault is almost done. Decommissioning time. Yes. Thanks Dad. Love you too."

He ends the call. His father was the best. Another backup of him and Dozer was in order.

~~~

Red looked at the large collection of junk they were wanting to take home. They could do with a bag. "If we put all the CD in the box with the paper so they don't scratch we can use my trousers as a bag."

Demi turns to see her unzipping her jeans. "How?"

"I'll tie the ends in a knot."

Demi pulls up her turtle neck top. "Use this instead, it will have more capacity."

Red watches her pull the top over her head. "Just how big are you?"

"Bust? 32DD."

"Don't they get in the way?"

"I've not known anything different. Maybe if I'd had ones your size first. You're ones look nice."

"Nice?"

"My owner watched a lot of pornography. He'd say the girls had a nice handful."

"Did he ever compliment you for your body?"

"No."

"Why?"

"I don't know."

"You never asked?"

"I was only awake for ninety three seconds before I was picked up and dropped off the balcony."

"Shit. You didn't fight?"

"After freaking out he stood still, apologised, smiled and picked me up off my feet. I thought he was being romantic. Instead I get dropped to the skip."

"So he was saying sorry for what he was about to do? Or what he'd already done?"

"I don't know."

Demi pulls the neck and knots it, does the same with the arms and holds it out for Red.

Mattie frowns, "You know how to tie knots?"

"I've seen it done a lot."

"Where?"

"In the bedroom."

"Huh?"

"He'd spend an hour covering me in a soft rope before doing things."

"Things?"

"I'd rather not say."

Mattie shakes her head. "We're getting the shit back. We'll hit him in the finances and make him suffer."

Red grins, "Can I help with the last bit?"

"If you'd like. I'm thinking we strip him off and tie him to his office chair in whatever way he'd tie Demi."

"So no baseball bat involved?"

Demi starts putting disc drives in the top as Red holds it open. "You could use the bat, but embarrassment will hurt him much more in the long term than short term bruising or broken bones."

"I hadn't thought of that. Do you know where he works?"

Demi bumps an address. "You'll need to dress like you're a multimillionaire potential client."

Mattie helps put bits in the stretching top. "That's easy enough. Shall we go shop and plan his downfall? Peaches, want to join in? You're in a body that's not easily identifiable."

"Count me in. Want to jump into a Sally, Poppy or Cindy for the day and join in too?"

"Um.. yeah. Why not." She looks at Demi, "Nice bralet by the way, where's it from?"

Before she can answer Red cuts in. "It is nice, can we discuss it while we check out the synths out the back?"

~~~

[Chapter-32](http://markse.name/humans/KARMA/Chapter-32-1)


	32. Chapter 32

Blue showed Mario photos he'd just received of the equipment they needed to decommission. "It looks like it will break down small enough to get into the lift. And being a synth now you'll remember exactly how things came apart, be able to reverse it to reassemble."

"Yeah. If this works, we're able to make whole wafer boards, what sort of storage capacity do you think we'll be able to achieve?"

David shrugs, "That's yet to be seen. We'll have to do a number of tests to see how small we can take things without failures creeping in. Then there's the issue of how thin cooling fins can go, how closely we can pack them in. If we went all out the silicon slices could also be shaped to fit the head better."

"What if we did a James like design? Have just the WiFi antenna, audio and video up there, all processing in the chest?"

"Not just storage? Hmm. I had considered that in the past. It felt wrong putting the brain outside of the head. It could go anywhere really. I liked it there, if any of the family found themselves overheating they could stick their head in cold water. And a head isn't usually covered in clothes, gets more air cooling."

"True. Let's keep it in the head then. If these wafers work they'll need a lot of temperature sensors in there to ensure they don't go into melt down."

"So we keep the design so it works on a low voltage. Play the heat vs power game."

"Yeah."

Mitch talks over the sound cannons. "Sorry to interrupt, there's a James outside asking if someone can take the lift to the garden and lock it off?"

"On my way Mitch!"

"Thanks Mario."

~~~

Mario gets out of the lift on the top floor ten minutes later, 'Mitch, I've run a patch from the switch to the lift control, you should be able to connect to it on 10.0.0.104 port 8080.'

'Hello Mario. And do what?'

'Lock it off. I've got one of my SBC talking RS232 to the controller. Send the word MAINTENANCE to lock it off. Send V, 0, 1 or 2 to take it to a floor.'

'Okay. One moment. How's that?'

Mario sees an X on the lift display, gets no response from the buttons. 'Good. Thanks. You can take a request to unlock it from myself or any of the James.'

'Understood.'

That job off the list Mario heads for the hatch to the staircase. There were still a lot of phones to set up. Salmon had found an app that let them sync contact details via a cloud account, between them they'd written a HECLS version and published it as a beta, downloadable through Apple's TestFlight app. It would help keep the app private. Their app also dealt with privacy. Any phone number labelled Private made the whole contact private so it didn't get pushed to the server.

~~~

Mattie returned to the car. "One hat, wig, sunglasses and a large designer jumper. That should make you look different enough Demi."

"Thanks." She gets the items from the bag and dresses fast. "Do they have many shops?"

"Loads!"

"Riri says she shops at Bluewater. Is it similar?"

"Same idea, a bit more upmarket. Let's all get power dressed."

"A common style like a uniform?"

"Hmm. What do you think ladies? The same style, each with something to make it ours?"

Peaches shrugs. "Let's see what's available in all the stores, bump share an inventory and vote on what we see."

"Red, does that sound okay with you?"

"I'll go with whatever you thinks looks good. I've been guilty of wearing triple denim remember."

"Root Niska you has changed, wore a dead sexy boho-chic outfit the other day."

"I surprise myself. Ready Demi?"

Demi nods.

Peaches grins, "Do you know in latin Demi means divided in half? You're definitely the whole with that pair. Even trying to hide them under that jumper."

Demi looks down. "Do you like them?"

"I do."

"Are you.."

"I used to be bi until I met Danny. Let's shop!"

~~~

Mario powers down the phone he'd just finished configuring and put it back in its box, wraps a slip of paper around it, puts an elastic band around it and writes Sophie. She, Renie and Radiant were getting some of the pink phones. He'd got Alfie to print a two part mould in nylon, had a batch of silicon rubber on the way. One that would cure clear, another black.

'Car Alfie, are you online?'

'Hello Daniel, I am. How are you?'

'Good, getting through the phones fast. How are the ladies getting on?'

'They recovered a lot of things from the site, are currently shopping.'

'For?'

'Clothes. To look like they're million dollar fund holders I believe.'

'Any particular reason?'

'From things Demi discussed with Red and Peaches while Mattie went for a temporary top it sounds like they want to get back at the man who had her built. He doesn't sound like a very nice person.'

'Okay. Are any of them with you now?'

'Not currently, no.'

'Okay, I'll drop Mattie a message. Thanks buddy.'

'You are welcome.'

Odi steps into the workshop with a very large cardboard box.

"Hi Odi, has someone been ordering more things?"

"Hello Mario. Yes. Me."

"What did you get?"

"Post trays. For the growing volume of letters to be opened. Will everyone be built in time for the wedding? There's one addressed to Leo marked private and urgent."

Mario turns to Blue. "In normal circumstances I'd never ask anyone to open another person's post.. but things aren't normal."

Blue gets up. "Far from it. If I could have the letter please Odi?"

~~~

The four ladies split up to work their way through all the shops. Every clothes, accessories and shoe shop would be checked without exception. A budget item from one store might fit the overall look they were after. Whatever that turned out to be.

Peaches logged into the shopping centre's WiFi then HECLS VPN. 'Mattie, Red, Demi, all online?'

She got three yes back.

'Cool. While checking out Lipsy I ran image clean up routines on those synths Red found, so far I've been able to match Gisele, Adriana, Kendall, Rosie, Candice, Gigi and Cara. I reckon Demi's banker was either involved in a copying racket.. or bankrolling it.'

Mattie paused what she was doing. 'The guy's going down. Down so frigging far he'll think hell is up!'

It got laughs back from the other three.

'My Bunny calls me Angel. This guy's going to wish I was the Angel of Death. What's his name Demi?'

'John Smith.'

'There must be thousands of John Smiths.'

'True. But he's a specific John Smith. And I know exactly where to find him.'

'Good.'

~~~

[Chapter-33](http://markse.name/humans/KARMA/Chapter-33-1)


	33. Chapter 33

Danny high-five's Blue. "Excuse my language but.. Fuck! You sir, are a _fucking genius!_ She'll love it!"

Blue smiles. "I'm glad you think so. Let's go have a chat with everyone. We'll redefine busy."

"Who needs sleep? I don't, yet. I'll bump Michael."

"I'll go talk to Fred, Max and Flash."

"Shall we all get together in the garden?"

"Is the lift still locked off?"

"Um.." 'Mitch, has a James released the lift yet?'

'Not yet.'

'Thanks.' "It's still locked off. Let's use the living room."

~~~

Mattie overclocked and walked through her latest shop at speed. Most things only needed a glance. 'There's a lovely business suit combo in here, mix and match jackets, skirts of different types and slacks.'

She gets a reply from Peaches. 'Bump an image?'

It's done.

'Nice! What do you think girls?'

Demi replies, 'Very smart. Will they have one big enough for me?'

'Do you want to go as you or undercover in a Cindy or Sally?'

'I hadn't thought of that. A loan body if I can then please?'

'Consider it done. Red, what do you think?'

'It's better than anything I've seen so far. Want us to finish our last few shops?'

'Let's. We might find something to compliment them.'

'Okay. I estimate I need another twenty minutes.'

'Bump when you're done, we'll vote when all images are in.'

"Mattie?"

She turns to see another uni student. "Billie! How are you?"

Billie frowns, "I'm good. How are you? The Channel Four news said the HECLS team were confirmed to be the ones that were on that flight that went down."

"What do they know? The news can confirm all the frig it wants. I'm here. How's Jason?"

"Good, he's holding our space in the queue for the restaurant. Want to join us?"

"I'd love to, but I'm here with friends, we're on a bit of an urgent mission. I'll see you at Uni after the holidays."

"Is Emily okay?"

"She's fine. I was talking to her only a moment ago."

"I tried to call her, her phone's going to voicemail."

"We had to get new numbers. I'll ask her to ring you."

"Thanks. See you in lectures then."

"Sure." She watches Billie go. 'Peaches?'

'Yes Babes?'

'Billie is trying to call you. Can you remove the pitch shift on Pinky and get her to talk for you? You can then make her think you're good.'

'Pinky's not got VPN code, I'll ask Mario to go and talk her through adding it.'

'Cool. He should have a new phone ready for you.'

'Wicked. Pinky could pair with it and answer calls, route the audio to me. Hehe! Billie wouldn't have a clue.'

'Unless she's at the estate watching the car?'

'Then I get Pinky parked somewhere she won't be seen.'

'Okay.'

~~~

Laura smiles and nods. "My answer is yes. You think your design will work?"

Blue nods. "I'll test it a lot with Mario, make sure it does."

Laura licks her teeth behind a pout and smiles with her eyes. "As soon as the girls are back with Alfie I'll head out with Michael."

"Thanks."

~~~

[Chapter-34](http://markse.name/humans/KARMA/Chapter-34-1)


	34. Chapter 34

'Ready?'

'Steady.'

'Go!'

Red and Peaches step out of the changing rooms at the same time.

"Babes!"

"Hot!"

"Hot and very smart! This is your look for the loaners, like them ladies?"

Mattie and Demi nod.

Demi keeps nodding. "It's a shame they don't do my size. I'd get a set."

Mattie does a little shuffle to the soft music playing, "We'll talk to Cindy Candlin when home, she could make you something bespoke in the same style."

"Thanks!"

Peaches does a theatrical bow and backs into the changing room. "Now for our looks Red."

Mattie keeps moving to the track, "I wish Leo told me the details of his Shazam style service."

"His what Babes?"

"He found an open Shazam like service, can do it in his head."

"Was it Echo Nest?"

"Yes!"

"Easy. Want me to bump some code?"

"You've got it?"

"No, but the API's super simple."

"I'll take a look."

"Have a read of this URL then." She bumps it.

"Thanks."

~~~

Mario walks up to Pinky with a phone and USB charge cable. "Hi Pinky. Emily's got a little job for you. I need to install this phone, give you code to get onto the HECLS VPN when you're not on the WiFi here."

"Sure Babes."

He smiles. Man did the car sound like Emily. He wanted her back. Soon. Very soon. At lest he knew his Emily would sound exactly like the original.

The door locks clunk. "Does it mean I'll be able to access the file server when I'm out and about with Emily? Talk to Mitch?"

"You can do everything as if you were here. Access all internal services and external, just not with the same bandwidth."

~~~

Red and Peaches stepped out of the changing rooms again, did a twirl.

Mattie blows them a kiss. "Mua! Love! Get those on hangers, I've got all the right sizes for the loaners Demi and I will use."

"Thanks Mattie."

"Cheers Babes. Where are we going next?"

"B and Q for some soft rope."

"Oooerr. That sort of Angel."

"If he dies it will be from acute embarrassment and humiliation."

"Do we need a nice business case to carry it in?"

"Yeah."

"I know just the shop." She steps out in her own clothes. "Want me to get it while you pay for those?"

"Got something to pay with?"

"Some cash."

"Cool. You ready Red?"

"I was _born_ ready." She steps out and hands Mattie the clothes. "Anything else we need?"

"We've got the shoes, the suit clothes, tops. Peaches is going to get a case. Have we all got nice handbags or clutches?"

~~~

Michael watches old Buzz leave the room and pounces. "We've got ten minutes."

Laura giggles. "Stop it! Not here."

~~~

Mario got comfortable with the seat slid back. "Got the code installed Pinky?"

"Yes Babes."

"Drop off the WiFi, the 4G should kick in."

"It has."

"Now start the VPN code."

"Started."

"Try bumping to me."

'Hello Babes.'

'That works.' "Good. Now pair with the phone. You should see Princess in the available devices."

"Okay. It's asking for a passcode?"

"Two one two oh."

"Connected."

"Okay. Here's the fun bit. Peaches is going to bump you a number to dial. Via Bluetooth you dial it via her phone not yours. She'll give you things to say, you repeat them in her voice, so drop the pitch shift."

"Wouldn't it be easier if I made the call?"

"I don't want to have to pull your dash apart to swap SIM cards. Also any calls end up in her call log. If the phone starts ringing you can bump Emily, I mean Princess Peaches, answer the call when she's ready."

"Okay."

"I'm going to get out, she'll bump you and we'll make a test call. When you talk through your speakers try and talk at the volume she would."

~~~

'Matilla Babes, they've got some nice ones here. Only my cash wouldn't stretch to those and the case.'

'We're coming to you then.'

Mario bumps. 'Where are you?'

'Mattie take the escalator up a level, turn right at the top you can't miss it.'

'See you in a few minutes then.'

'Okay Babes.' 'Hello Babes.'

'Pinky's ready for a test. Bump to her and ask her to call me.'

~~~

Red watches Mattie walking. "Are you thinking Sack of King Edward's or Who Runs the World? Girls!"

Mattie continues walking, not aware it was aimed at her.

"Think model on a catwalk, HECLS CEO. Own it!"

"Me?"

"Yes you! Do you want me to bump what I see?"

"Go on then."

Red does so.

'Oh. That looks like lazy slacker student me.'

'Back straight, feet walking a thin line.. that's more like it.' Red bumps a short video. 'Owned!'

'Thanks.'

~~~

[Chapter-35](http://markse.name/humans/KARMA/Chapter-35-1)


	35. Chapter 35

An hour later and back at the estate Demi enters the hallway in her loan Sally body and almost bumps into Fred. "Sorry. My.. aren't _you_ handsome. It's a shame I'm with my Simon, I'd ask you out."

Fred frowns, "You would?"

"In a pump cycle! You're a hunk!"

"I've never had anyone say that to me before. I had a relationship with a human, a friend of the family. We're still good friends, but just friends now."

"She let you go?"

"Work got in the way."

"What's her name?"

"Tabitha."

"Her loss is my gain. Can you stay here a moment please?"

"I can."

She knocks on the now closed workshop door. 'Mattie?' The lock clicks. She steps inside and closes the door. "How much would this body cost me to buy?"

"Why?"

"I almost bumped into the most handsome man I've ever seen!"

Mattie frowns and bumps to Odi, asks him to check the CCTV cameras, gets a fast reply. "Fred?"

"He didn't give his name. How much?"

"If you want it it's yours. On me."

She does an excited little wiggle. "Thanks! He's a dish! And the clothes he's wearing.. wow!"

Mattie frowned again. Had Fred been upgrading his wardrobe too? "This I need to see."

"What should I call myself?"

"Um.. why not just Rose?"

"A full rose not a half. I like it! Rose it is." She turns, adjust her clothes and steps to the door.

Mattie smiled. 'Mitch, unlock the workshop door please.'

'Done. This is exciting!'

'You're watching?'

'It's part of my job, I share camera monitoring with Odi as he sometimes goes out of range when collecting things from the Post Office.'

'Right.' She heads for the door. "The door's unlocked Rose."

Rose opens it and steps into the hall, puts a hand out. "Hello again Fred. I'm Rose. Would you do me the honour of being my partner? You've got lovely hands."

"I have?"

"You have."

Mattie isn't far behind. Sees Fred in a well starched quality shirt, open at the top. He had nicely taylor'ed trousers and highly polished shoes. "Whoa.. Freddie, looking very nice!"

"Thank you Mattie. I thought being a surgeon I should look the part."

Rose frowns, "Surgeon?"

"I'm a surgeon."

"Do you think you could operate on my other body? Then my time with Simon would be more enjoyable."

"What needs doing?"

She holds hands up. "My back was damaged, I can't feel anything from here to here. Mattie's offered a re-skinning or new build, if you can fix me it would probably save her a lot of money."

"I've never attempted an operation like that."

"Are you willing to try?"

"I am. Can you show me the damage?"

Rose takes his hand and leads him into the workshop. Demi was sat motionless on a chair. Rose holds her shoulders and gently pulls her forwards and pulls up the jumper. "I landed on a small filing cabinet frame from five floors up."

Fred touches the many skin packs. "Emergency fix?"

"My Simon did it. It was just after the awakening. I was lucky he was about and did what he did."

"Very. I think you'd have been dead in less than five minutes. And you want me to be my partner?"

"I'm doing a Mia."

"I see. Let me get my pocket torch."

"Why do you need a torch?"

"So I can see under a consistent light."

~~~

Fred reviewed the damage to Demi's back. "You must have been losing fluid fast."

Rose nods. "Very. Simon wrapped me in cling film to slow the fluid loss then went to the shops and got all the skin packs he could."

"Couldn't he have reused your original skin?"

"After I hit the filing cabinet frame I rolled, my skin caught in multiple places and ripped pulling wires through it."

"What happened to the spine connectors?"

"I think he removed them?"

Fred carefully feels. "It would appear so. I'll make an incision and check the connector pitch, see which donors would match."

"Would the colour be the same?"

"We'll find the closest match we can. I'll cut skin wider than this, to about here." He draws an outline with his fingers. "But I'll do it so sensor wires protrude as much as possible. I'll join them together."

"Is that possible?"

"I've done smaller stitches on humans. I'd join the wires, insulate them then turn the stitch inwards. I'll then use our HECLS custom skin formula to bond the two together. Owen could give you a tattoo to hide the faint join."

"How faint will it be?"

"Very."

"I'll decide on a tattoo when you've done the surgery then. When can you start?"

"As soon as I have a suitable donor. I'll go do some checks."

She gives him a hug and kiss. "You're a good man Fred."

"Thank you. You didn't know who I was before we met?"

"I didn't. I only came here because Riri said Poppy did piercings."

Fred gives her a smile. "Go join the others, I'll be back in a bit."

"Can I watch you work?"

"If you'd like?"

"I had a very sheltered life living only in a penthouse apartment until Simon rescued me. I want to learn."

"Good." He kisses her forehead. "We like learning here. And being nice to people. Of all types."

"If they're good?"

"All types."

"The man that did that to me wasn't nice. Mattie, Peaches and Red used all sorts of words to name him. None of them are nice words."

Fred smiles, "Not him then."

She puts both hands on his bicep and rests her head against him. "Thank you Fred."

"You're welcome Rose.. you'll need to let go so I can find the donor."

"Wait a moment.. I'm savouring the feeling."

~~~

Rose sat and watched Mattie wind rope off the plastic spool. "What's your plan?"

"I recently told my partner Leo not to look at something. Something like this." She bumps an image.

Rose doesn't react.

"That doesn't shock you?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"That was my everyday existence. I'd have thought it torture had I been awake then."

"Shit. I'm jumping into the loaner and getting dressed. And for a name I'm picking Karma. I'll let my inner bitch have some fun." She grabs cables. 'Mitch, can you ask Odi to come to the workshop please?'

~~~

Fred shon his pure white torch on the broken synth. The colour matched what he'd seen under the same torch light in the medical room. This was one from the collection the army had dropped off. 'Danny.'

'Mario speaking. Hi Fred.'

'Why do you call yourself Mario?'

'Because of the t-shirt I'm wearing and the fact I'm in a loaner Simon. If we all called ourselves Simon it would get bloody confusing. What's up?'

'I've found the perfect skin match for Demi. Only it's on one of the synths waiting for recycling.'

'So?'

'Sensory data? Can you make a connector the same size as a spine connector so we can zap and re-flash all the sensors in groups, ensure nothing bad gets into her?'

'Sure. Give me five and I'll meet you in the workshop. How many times will you use it?'

'If it works well for her I'd like to keep it in the toolkit.'

'Okay, we'll get Alfie to mill one out of metal rather than print.'

'Thank you.'

~~~

[Chapter-36](http://markse.name/humans/KARMA/Chapter-36-1)


	36. Chapter 36

Karma pulled up the zip on the pencil shirt. "How do I look?"

"Fab Babes!"

"It's frigging weird seeing myself powered down like that." She looks from her own body to Ruby, "Odi and Mitch will be watching and guarding my body, don't even think.."

"I wouldn't dare."

"Good. Thanks for handing the loaners back. Sure you want a new body?"

"When you're done making family."

"You too Sam?"

"If my Charlie's okay with it."

"When's Mr Funky Dreds due here?"

"After work, which could be anytime. Maybe as late as eight?"

"We'll be back by then. Rose, Peaches, Red, ready to role?" She gets nods. "Let's do this. The Rolls hire's been waiting long enough."

Rose looks towards the doors. "When they find out what we've done to him won't they be able to trace things back to here via the car?"

"Not when a Mia fork is the driver. She has very strong views on people like your Mr Smith."

"Oh. Let's go catch a monster then."

Mario head bumped with his Princess Peaches, forehead to forehead like Max had done to Fred in the crypt.

Karma grabs the Samsonite top loading catalog case. "Last one in the car is buying me lunch."

~~~

Seconds after they'd left the room Production Alfie beeped. Mario didn't hear it, he was now following them to the car. "You all look exceptionally smart. Nice outfits Ladies."

"Thanks Babes."

"Which firm are you from?"

"Asamo."

"Asamo?"

"Annoyed Synths Against Monster Owners."

"Haha. Nice. _ASAMO_."

"You think it should sound Japanese?"

"You could all be the representatives of a firm wanting to start up in the UK?"

"Why would we be going to a banker?"

"Because you've got one billion, five hundred million Japanese yen to invest."

"How much Babes!"

"Yen Princess. At the moment one pound is worth one hundred and forty six yen, fifty five pence."

"Oh. Okay. A reasonable bait figure then."

They leave the building to see the Mia fork in grey suit and hat. She was a Japanese model.

"Bloody hell Mattie! This has to be a sign!"

"Good eh? We'll be from a fictitious firm from the land of the rising sun and he'll be wishing the real sun was setting, forever."

Peaches frowns. "Why?"

"Does he have an office window Rose?"

"He does."

"That others can see into from other buildings?"

"Yes."

"Otherwise secluded?"

"Yes?"

Peaches giggles. "Now I'm following you. Hehe. We'll have to be quick and get out before anyone reports it and police arrive."

"We'll be quick, won't we Red?"

"Very!"

Mario gives Peaches a kiss. "Don't take unnecessary risks. Mario wants his Princess back."

"We'll be fine Babes."

~~~

Fred steps into the workshop and sees Alfie inactive. "Good. Has anyone seen Mario?"

Sam nods, "He's just seeing the girls off."

~~~

Mario bumps to Mitch, 'Mitch, let Laura know she can make the call.'

~~~

Laura holds her phone to her ear. "Get your arse over her now. Yes. _Right now_."

~~~

Fred gets a dry paint brush and gives the block a good brush down. 'Mario, can you get the connector wires into the block please?'

'On my way already.'

'Thank you.' Fred looks at it close up, he didn't want even the smallest of metal scraps getting near the skin he'd harvested from the donor synth. If any worked their way into the fluid pump it could causes early component failure. Not something he wanted Demi to suffer. She'd had a bad experience being dropped many floors into a skip, needed the best second chance at a good life he could give her.

The door swings open. "I was going to say it needed cleaning, you've beaten me to it." Mario goes to a draw and gets a crimp tool, another to get wires and a third to get tiny connectors to crimp on. "This shouldn't take long at all. The code to wipe and re-flash is on David's laptop."

"Thank you."

"If you could boot it up, I'll get the interface board that'll sit between the two in a moment."

~~~

Mattie relaxes into the well padded seat. "This is nice. Can we stop at a KFC drive through on the way? I'm getting hungry."

Kimiko nods. "Of course Mattie. I'll make an exception for you. What's you're charge level like?"

"I _refuse_ to talk charge levels. I'm not a frigging machine. I'm adopting something like Max's scale. Fine, peckish, mildly hungry, hungry, really hungry, starving."

"Mattie you were always a machine of sorts, DNA creating cells that processed food and oxygen to.."

"Okay.. let's not get into a frigging argument about it."

Peaches frowns, "Are you okay Mattie?"

"No. I'm finding it harder and harder to think straight."

Kimiko shifts to se her in the rear view mirror. "How much sleep have you had?"

"Sleep? None."

"Mattie Sleep Charge is called that for a reason. Just like in your original body you need sleep to commit short term memory to long."

"I don't want to sleep, I'll have nightmares."

"You have to."

"I said I don't want to!"

"Mattie I'm a first level Mia fork. As your friend I'm telling you that you _have_ to."

"And I'm telling you that I don't want to."

"Have you had the lecture on extreme resources usage?"

Mattie looks at Peaches. "Have we?"

"No Babes, nothing by that name. Why, what happens?"

"All of you, calculate pi to a million places and tell me how long it took."

"What will that prove?"

"The closer to zero free short term memory you have the slower you'll clock. You'll start randomly sampling sensory data rather that be aware of it all."

Mattie frowns, "Why?"

"To reduce the rate at which you fill short term memory."

Red looks at the two post-human synths. "I'm done. Approximately ten seconds."

Peaches smile fades. "Thirteen seconds so far and I'm nowhere near done. Mattie?"

"I didn't bother starting until now, but it's painfully slow. And you booted hours before me, so I'm in an even worse state."

Kimiko turns off the radio. "May I suggest a small meal, one that you won't spoil your clothes with and a very milky sugar loaded hot chocolate?"

"Why very milky?"

"The memory of it may help you relax and sleep. A short power nap is advisable. Short term to long term processing doesn't have to be done in a single session."

"Okay."

"The nearest KFC is six minutes away."

~~~

Mario got a bump from James One. 'Can you find a sharp scrap of metal and come down in the lift please?'

'Hi. What's up?'

'What's down, is wanting to dig the last of the tunnel section. We'd like to come into the bottom of the shaft through our crawlway, cut the doorway up at lift level and tunnel properly.'

'Okay, just something to scratch outlines then?'

'Please.'

'On my way.'

'Thanks.'

~~~

[Chapter-37](http://markse.name/humans/KARMA/Chapter-37-1)


	37. Chapter 37

Kimiko smiles at the now sleeping Mattie, puts the radio back on.

_and then their music stopped. You're listening to Iain Dale on LBC, Leading Britain's Conversation. Up next this afternoon, who was that dare devil stunt rider? Callers with_

Kimiko changes the station.

Red sits forwards fast. "Can we have the previous station please!"

It's put back.

_calling in with theories. We have Margaret from Sidcup on the line. Margaret, what did your dashcam record?_

_I'd just stopped at the lights on the slip road off the M25 northbound, the bike came racing past at an incredible speed. My Jim's estimated the distance, thinks it's doing well over a hundred around the junction._

_Just for our listeners benefit this junction is like a giant roundabout?_

_It is, yes._

_And the rider was riding it how?_

_My Jim reckon's the rider's a lady. She was hanging on by one foot and hand, looked like a flying sidecar._

_Flying?_

_Her body was to the right hand side of the bike, flying like one of those people that jump off mountains in squirrel suits, only she was just in tight leathers. Jim's put the dashcam video up on YouTube._

_How many views has he had?_

_Hang on.. Jim! How many hits? Yes. LBC, Hurry up! Won't be a moment Iain.. Four hundred thousand and rising very fast._

_What has Jim called it?_

_Jim, tell him what you called it!_

There's a click as another telephone on the home line is picked up. _Hello?_

_Hello Jim_

_It's called I'd Love To Ride That! Brackets Bike_

_Jim you twat!_

_Margaret you're on the bloody radio!_

*I don't give a monkey's arse, you don't give videos on the family account names like that! What will our Casey think!"

Iain coughs and drops their call. _That's just one of many sightings captured on dashcams. Prior to the bike reaching the junction one Porsche driver attempted to give chase, reached one hundred and seventy and gave up with the bike accelerating away from him fast. Name withheld for obvious reasons. Next on the line we have Hubert._

_Hello Iain._

_What did you want to say on the matter?_

_She's obviously a synthetic, no human could have done that. If she's single I'm free._

_You're phoning LBC to ask her for a date?_

_Yes._

_I'll add you to the list. You're number fifty three in the line. That's not including the officers from the Kent police force who want to talk to the rider. We contacted the Special Technologies Task Force, they declined to comment on active enquiries._

Red sits back. "You can change station now, thanks."

Peaches turns sideways a little in the seat. "Active enquiries? Nobody's come to the estate have they?"

"No. Karen wants one of the bikes. She's probably running interference."

"Running what?"

"Distraction tactics."

"Good for her."

~~~

Mario finished scratching out the outline for the door and hit the button for the ground floor. 'James? Can you hear me?'

There wasn't a reply. Hmm. Doors open he races into the workshop, grabs an extension cable and spare WiFi router BT had shipped when installing their second circuit and the longest patch lead he had. "Blue, seen any large plastic bags?"

"For?"

"Stopping this getting full of dust."

"A bin bag in the kitchen any good?"

"That will do."

"What's it for?"

"I'm going to dangle this down the lift shaft so the James can be on the network while they work."

"No signal down there?"

"I'm guessing there's just enough water in the clay to attenuate the signal down to unusable levels."

"Okay."

~~~

Karma wakes with a start. "Fuck!"

"Babes?"

"I just had a dream about Demi. Only I played the part of Demi and Leo her Mister Smith."

Rose gives her an expressionless face. "Monster Smith. Not Mister Smith."

Red stretches a little. "On behalf of Demi I accept the challenge of making him suffer. How much though? Was he responsible for the other copies of young women I found outside at the back?"

Karma nods. "I looked at all of those bits of paper Demi picked up, just quickly before we left to get an image of each in my head. Which was probably why things were slowing down for me. My short to long power nap must have been studying them and indexing. His name or initials appears on a lot of them. I know it's a common name but surely that's not a coincidence?"

Red nods slowly. "We'll get him to talk."

"How?"

"Us four ladies want some men, a friend said he might know someone who can help?"

"Muhahaha. I'll have a early twenties Tom Cruise. Just for this game."

"Babes! I was going to pick him!"

"You have him, I'll have.. current day George Clooney."

"Now there's a man that's aged well! Who's your choice Rose?"

"Just for this game?"

"Yes."

"Pharrell Williams."

"Dish! What about you Red?"

"It can be anyone?"

"Yes. It's just a game."

"Monica Bellucci."

Peaches gasps. "Babe! She's _gorgeous!_ Another that's aged well. Younger or current?"

"From a few years ago. From the film Toby and Danny like so much."

"Did you pick her because there's a slight resemblance to Astrid? When she has her hair done in the right way?"

~~~

Danny wrapped the bagged collection of hub and empty power drum down the shaft. He'd had to call Endre to get the special instructions on how to open the lift doors without the lift present. With it as far down as it would go he knelt on the cables and pulled duct tape off a role to tape the cables to the floor. 'Any James near the bottom of the lift shaft able to hear me?'

'Hello Mario. How's that working?'

'A spare WiFi hub, come in handy super long UTP patch cable and the thirty meter mains extension lead.'

'Thanks! You couldn't power some light off it could you?'

'Ah. Let me pull it back up and plug some LED lights in.'

'Thanks buddy.'

~~~

Kimiko slowed the car and stopped. "Ladies, we're here."

Karma grins wickedly. "Okay ladies. You've got coloured contacts on too Red, you run the chameleon code. You and I will be pissed off old scool humans, Rose and Peaches you'll be synths."

Red watches the body language. "I'll play a synth, I've alway been one. Here Peaches, you borrow my contacts."

"But I'm in a mass produced synth body."

"As is Mattie. A reason to get fucking mad at him? How long have those models been on the market?"

"Only.. haha! Red, you genius!"

"I have my moments. He won't have been responsible for it but it'll be a good excuse to be angry."

Kimiko opens the door for them. "Best of luck ladies. Karma, Peaches, careful with the chameleon code, you won't be able to bump talk to the others with another synth in sight, they'll see the change."

"Thanks. Ladies, I'll do the talking until we're inside his office. You can bump to the princess and I, we can't reply until then."

~~~

[Chapter-38](http://markse.name/humans/KARMA/Chapter-38-1)


	38. Chapter 38

The four enter the big open reception area. It was three floors high, glass walled and letting in a lot of light. "I wonder who the architect was?"

"It's nice Babes."

"No more babes until we've left his office."

"Here's a voice I prepared earlier."

"Whoa. Is that a rework of Mia's? It's lovely and calming."

"A blend of Mia and a few others."

"Very nice. You should see what Mario thinks of it." They get to the reception desk. "Good afternoon, we're here to see John Smith on the twelfth floor."

"Is he expecting you?"

"We've just come here on the recommendation of another bank."

"Your name please?"

"Karma."

"And your company name?"

"Asamo."

The synth receptionist turns to a colleague, clearly bumping. She turns back to look at Karma. "I can find no reference to a company by that name."

"In which directory? We're from a Japanese firm."

Rose bumps. 'Tell her we'll sort it out with the receptionist on his floor. He has international clients.'

"We can talk to the receptionist on his floor, I'm told he has international clients."

"I've just spoken to her, she says John is in. If you could sign in on behalf of your firm please."

Inside the loaner body she was calling Karma Mattie did a laugh in her head as she signed Karma Bitch with the black Biro. "Done. Any of the lifts?"

"One to four for the lower floors."

"Thank you. Ladies."

~~~

Mario kneels on the floor and looks down the shaft as a section of ladder comes out of the hole at the bottom. It soon hits the back wall.

'Bugger!'

'Too long James?'

'I'll have to dig out a lot at the top edge to be able to get the angle and raise it.'

'How soft is the clay?'

'Reasonably.'

'Then let's hook it with something from up here and pull, it should slice through it.'

'If there's no rocks.'

'Do your sonar thing then.'

'Nice plan B. I didn't like the idea of having to crawl backwards.'

~~~

With the other passengers out of the lift leaving just the four, Karma puts a hand into the middle. "Layer hands sisters."

Peaches is the first to do so. "Sister Synth."

"Yeah.. about that.. we _really_ need to finish that bike."

"After we've got Miami to America. I hope the restaurant isn't too pissed off."

"Shit. I hope Jack is too pissed to have noticed the makeover." The lift bings and stops. "Here goes."

The doors open, the synth receptionist was stood right in front of the doors and does a low bow. "Yoi gogo no josei."

Peaches quickly stands behind Rose so the receptionist can't see it's her dropping code to bump. 'Say Anata ni yoi gogo. Watashi no dōryō wa eigo o hanasu.'

"Anata ni yoi gogo. Watashi no dōryō wa eigo o hanasu."

'It means Good afternoon to you. My associates speak English.'

"If we could stick to English so everyone can understand?"

"Of course, do come in, John is expecting you. Can I get you a drink?"

"A coffee for me would be lovely. Ladies?" The others shake heads. "Just the one then."

"I'll show you to John's office."

"Thank you. Do I know who your design is based on, you look familiar?"

"I'm told there's elements of Tyra Banks and others?"

"Yes, I see it now. Very pretty. How's the work here?" She was in Mattie mode, not Karma Bitch, watched the synth glance away for a moment before answering.

"It's okay."

"Just okay?"

"Yes."

She switched back to her alter ego. "Bring the sugar and a spoon or stirring stick with you please."

"Of course. Let me show you to his office."

Karma leads the pack as the synth steps to an office and opens the door. "Mr Smith, the ladies the ground floor reception sent up are here."

John gets to the door fast, "Do come in, have you been asked about drinks?"

"We have, thank you."

He motions to seats, gets to the other side of his desk and sits.

'Babes! He's fit! Shame he's a fit shit!'

Mattie got so close to breaking cover and laughing, held it together, touched her wrist. "Blast. I left my Fitbit at the gym." She takes a seat. "We have a few yen to invest in the markets. Someone in another bank recommended you."

"Can you say who?"

"They asked not to be named, but said you're the man to help us with something more personal?" 'Think he'll bite?'

John frowns, thumps a small monitor on his desk. "And what might that be?"

She turns to see the door still open. "We'll say when we're ensured some privacy."

The receptionist enters with a tray.

John smacks his monitor again. "Odd. Hold all my calls please, no interruptions."

Karma smiles, "Thank you."

The door closes.

'Red, give me a moment.'

'Sure.'

John frowns again and smacks the monitor. "Bloody thing's on the fritz."

"Do you have technology problems?"

"I've got a contraption that lets me know who I'm dealing with. For a split second it showed you as synth. It's showing you as human now. It's getting things wrong."

"That sounds like something we should have. Who makes it?"

"It's a custom device, I got given it by some people I used to work with. What was the personal matter? And why is my thing saying you and her are human?" He points to Peaches.

"Ah. It's all related. We're after some husbands. Ones that look like very specific people. We understand you might be able to help?"

"In the past. That service got shut down."

"So you can't get me a Tom Cruise or George Clooney?"

"Not anymore."

"That's a shame. Were they responsible for copying my friend Peaches and I do you think? She's a bit miffed at having her good looks mass replicated. My feelings, they're a bit more than miffed."

"That wouldn't have been my lot, they only did one offs."

"Like?"

"Various models."

Red stepped slowly to the windows and gazed out at the view. "Various models?"

"Well known fashion or catwalk models."

"Men and women?"

"Just women."

"Why just women?"

"That's what my clients wanted."

"And just fashion and catwalk?"

"Maybe the odd glamour model."

"Wonderful! You can start it up again and make us some men. We're very wealthy."

"Sorry ladies, the machines have all been taken away."

"By who?"

"Persona."

Red watches him slide his hands off the desk and onto his lap and pounces.

~~~

Mario watches James One fish for the end of the ladder with the rope and hook. "You almost had it that time."

"I could get a fish out of the lake easier than this blasted ladder."

'Three, if you can hear me try and raise the ladder off the shaft floor a moment.'

One hooks it. "Got it!"

~~~

Red gags John. "This is on behalf of every synth that you've brought into the world that's suffered under their owners hands. I read that a synth snapped a man's neck. Don't make me copy her." 'Don't mention Demi Rose anyone.'

Rose gets to the door and stands in front of it incase anyone tried to come in.

~~~

Mario stands aside as James One pulls hard on the rope. "Three, push your end, don't let the end of the ladder scratch the shaft base, we don't want all those hand and feet prints scratched."

A faint "Yes Boss!" echoes up the shaft.

One pulls even harder, the rope starts to stretch under the strain.

"Boss?"

"Yes Three?"

"Let it down a little, it's acting like a saw, if we go back and forth a few times.."

"Good thinking Three!"

~~~

Red lifts John so his legs are spread and starts binding his ankles to the bottom of the chair arms. All of his clothes sat on the floor. "No hard on? You're not finding this enjoyable?"

John shakes his head.

"I thought all humans liked this sort of thing? I've obviously been given bad data. Oh well. I've started so I'll finish."

Karma checks out his little monitor. "Very clever. Quite the invention. Are there many of them?"

John shakes his head.

"Less than ten?"

He nods.

"Less than five?"

Again he nods.

"One?" She looks at Rose. "Rosemary, you can tell if he's telling the truth. Is he?"

She nods.

"Thank you." The device is pulled from the desk, the power cable rips from the back. It's thrown on the floor and stamped on, the heal spike running through the display into the circuit board. "We don't like discrimination do we ladies? Original human, synth human. All human." She turns back to see John. "Wow! You're fast when you're pissed off! Nice work Redemption! Wheel your artwork up against the window for everyone to see."

Red grins and does so.

Karma looks at John's other monitor, makes a note of all the stock codes he was tracking. "We're done here. Sorry we decided not to invest all of our yen with you John. We'll do business with the bank we first spoke to. Far nicer people in there. They treat people as equals no matter their type. Good day Mr Smith." She makes hand signals for them to go, picks up her now empty case.

Rose checks the coast was clear and steps out. "Thank you Karma."

"Payback is a bitch." She spots the receptionist in the distance. "I'll meet you all at the car in a moment."

~~~

Mario watched One step back several feet as the ladder came out okay. "Well done. How many more do you need?"

"Now we've got that one through the others will be easy. Five more sections. To help spread our weight."

~~~

Karma walks over to the receptionist. "Don't try seeing John for a while. If you want a better job there are plenty firms that treat synths like you as equals."

"There are?"

"Sure."

"Such as?"

"HECLS is getting good feedback."

"Heckles?"

"H E C L S. They did something for a synth friend."

"Did what?"

"A belly piercing. It turns out they do way way more. A lot of technology, synth health care, all sorts."

The synth frowns. "Who copied you? Was it John and his people?"

"Apparently not. My quest for an answer continues. As I said, leave Mr Smith for a while, he's in a foul mood."

"Why?"

"We decided to take our money elsewhere. Good day to you."

"Thank you for the tip. I'll check out other companies."

"You're welcome." She checks her wrist. "I need to remember to get my Fitbit from the gym. What time is it?"

"Time I clocked off and went looking for a better job."

"Good for you!"

~~~

[Chapter-39](http://markse.name/humans/KARMA/Chapter-39-1)


	39. Chapter 39

Kimiko opened the car door for Karma. "Peaches will be with us momentarily."

"She's not here?"

"She's visiting someone in the building on the other side of the road."

"Did she say who?"

"No, she said.. there she is."

Peaches checks both ways and steps fast across the road, her skirt restricting movement. "Sorry, just had to do a little role play." She opens a door on the road side and gets in.

Karma gets in too, "Role play?"

"Shocked customer looking out the window Babes. Very shocked."

"Wicked. That must have been quite an acting challenge then?"

"I've never done bondage, don't want to either, but yeah, I had to channel something else to get so shocked and disgusted."

"What?"

"I can't say."

"Go on."

"Honestly I can't. You'd all want Blue hacking you to get the thought out."

Red gets comfortable, "Shall we go then? Thanks for Redemption. I liked that."

Mattie smiled. It felt different in the body she'd called Karma. "You're welcome. Let's get home."

Peaches bites her lip. "Hmm. Via a few other places were we can change and get into a different car."

"Why?"

"Red's bike ride was caught on lots of dashcams."

"Oh hell. Kimiko, were there any cars about when we left the estate?"

"Checking.. Yes Mattie. Not until we got to the dual carriageway."

"Close enough. Crap. Got a registration mark?"

"Yes?"

"What is it?"

"Which one?"

"Oh bollocks. How many?"

"Three."

Red stops gazing at the buildings they were passing and smiles at Mattie. "We could hack DVLA, get the owners addresses, take their dashcam storage cards?"

"Hacking and breaking into cars to fix an assault? I don't think that's the best of ideas."

Peaches blows a kiss. "Nobody got to see our belly buttons."

"Have you lost the frigging plot?"

"Lost it and found a better one. We tip off the press."

"Now you really have.."

"Listen then judge."

"Okay."

"Someone tips off the press about the living art installation Red put together on the twelfth floor. Then another later tips off the people that arrive that it was us. They'd seen us from the adjacent building."

"You're.."

"Wait! We go to HECLS to get belly piercings. Only it's spares that walk out in these clothes not us."

"Not a bad plan. You're forgetting one thing."

"Which is?"

"Unless you know someone with a space ship that can travel at warp speed or a time machine we've got no fast way to get a spare for Red."

"Bum."

Red smiles. "I could make off with the bike, race up to Scotland?"

"And let people know the bike prototype came from HECLS? No thanks. I'd like Danny to do the finished thing and be able to say it was inspired by seeing the prototype. Which we'll crash by remote control."

"You want to write it off?"

"I want the crazy stunt around that junction to be someone else's problem."

"So we give another firm the credit for making the bike?"

Peaches shifts uneasily, "Danny would hate that."

Rose puts up hands. "We don't do any of that."

"Then what do we do?"

"Tell the truth."

"Which version? Or mostly the truth?"

"Mostly?"

"A story with some verifiable facts."

Their guest thinks for a moment. "Demi Rose wanted to find someone to help her get John Smith back for what he did?"

Karma ran fingers through her hair. "And met Rosemary while at HECLS, who was there with her three friends about.."

Peaches chips in. "Being venture capital suppliers for your bike project. The prototype was borrowed, taken for a spin. A bug got it going too fast. Now fixed."

Red grins, "And Redemption got so mad hearing about John she came up with a plan."

~~~

Fred methodically worked his way around the massive skin patch. "Flash, how are we doing for fluid loss?"

"Only a quarter of a litre so far."

"Good. Very good. I'm sure others would have found the solution of Mario's questionable, but it has worked."

"The fluid loss would have been much higher if she had been lying on them. I think the base for the hair extension machine was his inspiration."

Fred nodded, "It must have been."

The workshop made bed that Demi was lying face down on was a little like a massage bed. Instead of just the hole for a person's face there was a much larger one for her chest.

Fred counted the remaining exposed wires on the patch and her body. A perfect match. He carefully solders with an iron with modified micro tip, trims and insulates. "Can you mix up three batches of the skin weld solution please nurse?"

Flash smiled with her eyes. She liked being called nurse. Mixing it up was easier than making cheese sandwiches, felt more important too. "Yes Fred. When do you need them for?"

"If you start mixing now I'll be done by the time it's ready."

~~~

[Chapter-40](http://markse.name/humans/KARMA/Chapter-40-1)


	40. Chapter 40

Demi opens her eyes to see Fred, Flash and Mattie. "Hello. How did it go?"

Flash smiles and looks at Fred, "Shall I?"

Fred motions for her to move, "Please do."

Flash steps behind Demi and undoes the back of the gown. "I'm going to bump what I see Demi."

"Okay.. you did a re-skinning?"

Fred shakes his head. "No."

" _You built a whole new body!_ "

Fred lets a laugh escape. "No, I did a new skin patch."

"No.. you can't have."

Flash touches her shoulder. "I'll get really close."

"Oh my maker.. that's.. what words would you use Mattie?"

"Me? Frigging amazing. But you need to find your own."

"That's so faint people won't see it unless they get very close. Thank you so much Fred!"

"Thank you. That's another procedure on my list of accomplishments. If you wouldn't mind I'd like to use memories of the procedure to create a page on our web site."

"Please do!"

There's a knock at the door. "Mattie, we have a couple of visitors."

She turns towards the door, "I'll be out in a moment Odi." Turned back to Demi she smiles, "Nice work Freddie. Very nice. If you could all excuse me a moment?"

"Of course Mattie."

She steps into the hallway to see Odi at the doors. "Hi Odi."

Odi pulls the door wider.

Mattie tries her best not to show any sign of recognition. "Hi. How can I help you?"

"A lady called Karma suggested I try looking for a better job. She mentioned this firm."

"Karma? That's an odd name?"

"My friend on the ground floor reception called me over and got me to look at what the lady had signed. Karma Bitch!"

Mattie frowned. "So not her real name? Do you know why she was there?"

"It's been on the news. My boss was stripped naked and tied to a chair, pushed in front of his office window."

"Bloody hell!"

Mattie turns, "Hi Mum."

"Karma's in the living room. Along with Redemption, Rose and Peaches. Talking about knot tying."

"Our visitors waiting for Poppy?"

"That's them."

"Weird names. Sorry, come in. Is this your partner?"

The man pulls a face. "Me? I'm here for me fam Sam."

"Ah! You're Mr Funky Dreds Charlie."

"Girl, you and me just fell out."

"I didn't mean to cause offence. Only we have a Charlie model here, named Michael."

"Then he Michael. I'm Charlie. Just Charlie."

"Okay Just Charlie."

"Now you'z just fallen out for def. Where's the bitch giving my Sam a new body?"

"You're looking at her."

"Cuz! You and me just made up!"

Mattie rolls her eyes. "Aren't you a character."

As she'd said it Demi, Fred and Flash had stepped out of the medical room into the hallway.

The man's eyes would have popped out James style for replacements if they could. "Come to papa girl, you'z fine!"

Mattie folds her arms. "I thought you were here for Samantha?"

"Sure cuz, just wanting a cuddle, notin' more. It's no problem for me fam, but it's a problem for you?"

"Go be a player somewhere else Charlie. Sam deserves better."

Charlie gives Mattie a disgusted look. "I ain't having no human dis me like that."

Mattie stops the chameleon code. "How about a post-humans synth?"

Charlie looks confused. "You'z synth?"

"This is the quality of the conversion Sam would get."

"THAT SHIT IS THE BOMB!"

Michael races out of the living room with a worried look. "Bomb? Where?"

"Bro, she's the bomb!"

Michael looks at Mattie, "A Miaz copy of Mattie? Where's Fred?"

Mattie smiles, "Not that sort of bomb."

"I'm not taking risks, I'll get the x-ray."

"Michael, it's a saying! Something's the bomb means it's good."

"It is? That's a stupid saying. Especially with what we've gone through."

"Bro you dissing me?" Charlie puffs his chest up and advances.

Michael does the same. "It would appear so. Stupid."

"Nigger you watch your mouth."

"You watch yours. My army's bigger than yours."

Charlie steps so close they bump chests. "If you're going to walk the walk you better talk the talk. My crew's _hundreds_."

Michael clicks fingers close to Charlie's ear. "My crew could take your crew like that. It's members are in the _millions_."

Charlie frowns, "Ain't no crew dat big."

"Mamma Mia is my one fork parent."

Charlie raises a finger, steps backwards all the way to the doors, steps outside and closes the door. There's a knock.

Odi frowns and opens the door. "Hello?"

"Good afternoon to you sir, the name's Charlie, I was wondering if my Samantha is with you?"

Mattie shakes her head in disbelief. "Why couldn't you have been like that from the start?"

"Nice? Not all ladies want nice. I work for a dubstep and grime record label. I have to put on a ganster act to fit in. That's where Sam met me."

Mattie's head was still shaking. "It's a myth. What we _really_ want is nice not nasty."

Charlie pulls faces. "In my experience that's not always true.."

The door opens again. "Mattie, you've got to come and see this!"

"See what?"

Mario continues through the hall. "Follow me."

"To?"

"The lift."

She sighs, "It's all go here." She turns to see Laura leaning against the living room door. Her mother's expression was one of her _not amused_ looks. "Mum, can you show Charlie to the workshop? I think Sam and Ruby are there with Blue."

"Sure Mats."

"And Odi, can you take.. sorry, what was your name?" She looks at the receptionist.

"Tina."

"Can you take Tina to.. actually, you come with me Tina, people have been saying I should get an assistant. Odi, how many apartments do we have left in Synth Village?"

"It's gone up. Seven."

"People have moved out?"

"No. Sculpture Sally is going with Hubert."

"Oh. Nice. I thought there was a friendship growing. Why are Karma and friends still here?"

"They're waiting for Poppy."

"And where is she?"

"With Cindy Candlin talking dresses for.."

Laura cuts in. "You'd think she had enough dresses wouldn't you! She's obsessed! Odi, come help me please."

"Yes Laura."

~~~

[Chapter-41](http://markse.name/humans/KARMA/Chapter-41-1)


	41. Chapter 41

In the lift Mattie waits for Mario to press a button. It starts moving on it's own. "How'd you do that?"

"I asked Mitch to take us to the vault. It's networked now."

"Cool. So Tina, I can't give you any idea of salary just yet, but you'd get a fully furnished apartment in the building behind this one, luxury double bed, bathroom and kitchen, all the charge you need, a food processor mod and paid holiday. And you'd travel around the world assisting me. How does that sound?"

"Wonderful! More than I got working for Mr Smith."

"How much did he pay you?"

"Pay? Nothing. My travel card, power and a small bed room in a basement flat in Stratford."

"That's it?"

"And these clothes."

"How many outfits?"

"These clothes."

"That's it? Just the clothes you're wearing?"

"Yes."

"Bastard. Raking in the money, not sharing it. That's not how we operate here. Bring a good idea to the table that's turned into a product or service and you'll be rewarded with a share of the profits. Want the job?"

"Please!"

Mattie puts a hand out as the lift doors open. "Welcome to the team Tina. Are you a blend of.."

"Tina Turner, Tyra Banks and Jasmine Tookes."

"I'm not familiar with the last one?"

"She's a Victoria's Secret model." Tina takes Mattie's hand. It's shaken. "Thank you. Do I call you.."

"Mattie. Just Mattie."

"Thank you Mattie."

~~~

Laura put down the paper she was reading, leaned into Michael. "There's something I need to get off my chest Michael."

"That sounds ominous. About us?"

"Yes."

"Is it something I've done?"

"Yes."

Michael wraps an arm around her, "Tell me then, I can't improve if I don't have feedback."

"That's it. You've become more and more masculine. Like Charlie putting on his act. I want the Michael I fell in love with."

"You don't like me trying to be one of the men?"

"I liked you more being you. As you were when we first met."

"Thank God!"

"Sorry?"

"Please don't tell Fred, Max and Toby! I love watching them play football, _hate_ playing it."

"You were trying to fit in with them?"

"Yes. I'll stop immediately. I'm not losing you over something like that." Michael twists and brings lips to hers.

There's a cough. "Sorry to disturb."

Laura turns to see Buzz Senior, dressed for travel, a bag by his side. "You're not going already are you?"

"I have to catch a flight. The car's waiting. I have commitments in the US. Is Mattie here?"

"She's gone down to the vault."

"Is it safe to go down there and say goodbye?"

Laura looks at Michael, "Can you ask the James?"

"I just have. They say it's safe."

~~~

Buzz steps into the tunnel. " _HELLO?_ "

"Buzz? We're in the vault."

He walks as fast as possible. "I have a car waiting to take me to the airport. Sorry, I have things I must attend to."

Mattie meets him at the opening of the tunnel. "We'll visit you soon. We have to get Miami over to her new dance home."

"True. I look forward to it my dear. Second time lucky."

"Yeah. Thanks so much for all you've done for us."

"You're more than welcome. When might you fly out?"

"As soon as everyone's built. We're doing a mass power up, so nobody feels they were put last."

"Good for you." He puts out a hand. "I'll see you again soon then."

Mattie pulls him forwards, plants a kiss on his cheek. "You can count on it. Thanks again. Especially getting Ruby over."

"As I said, you're welcome. Must dash."

Mattie watches him go, turns back to see the asteroid.

The three James were stood around it. A large white battery recovered from the lake was wired to what looked like Dozer's welding kit. They'd built a base for it.

One nods at Two. "Fire it up."

The asteroid starts to turn slowly.

"A little faster Two."

The military unit synth turns a dial. His massive hands made the control look tiny. It starts to spin much faster.

Mattie does a Sophie head tilt. "Do you see the glow?"

Mario gives her a puzzled look. "What glow?"

"Like a halo."

"What mode are you looking at it in?"

"Everyday light. Like a breather."

The asteroid spins faster and faster.

Mario frowns, "A glow like a halo. For an angel?"

Two turns the dial one way then the other. "Oops. Boss, I think I broke the speed control."

"The glow's getting stronger." Mattie's view changed with a snap.

She was sat at a desk with a pen in hand, a letter about to be signed. She looks up and sees a giant LED screen that ran from floor to ceiling, an animated summer forrest clearing was playing. "Frigging hell."

The image displayed on the giant screen changes slightly. A woman appears. "Everything okay Mats?"

Mattie looks sideways, sees the view out of the floor to ceiling window. She was high up. Very high up. In a building not the sky lift. Two men were stood looking at the view. She recognised one. "David? Who's that?"

He turns to see her. "You know George. Everything okay Mats?"

Snap.

Now she was in a Christmas grotto, surrounded by family and a very convincing Santa. Only some of their partners were different. "Toby?"

"Mattie?" He waits. "Something wrong? Holly-Anne, does she look okay to you?"

"No, she looks lost. Everything okay Mattie?"

"Um.."

Snap.

Now she was on a bike, sat behind Leo at the side of a race track. A finished bike. Two bikes race past. "Who's that?"

"Mia and Niska, who else? Everything okay Angel?"

"Um.."

Snap.

Now she was stood in a kitchen, a very young girl in her arms. "Oh my God! Molly?"

'Mummy?'

"You're _so_ beautiful!" Tears well up.

'Mummy what's wrong?'

'You're head bumping?'

'Mummy have you forgotten?'

'Um..'

Snap.

Now she was outside, watching a man take off his jacket. "Imagine this is your soul."

"A thin black jacket?"

"Stay with me." He holds it against the railings. "What if reincarnation exists." He pushes at one point so the jacket pokes through the gap. "Here you are, in this world, being someone in a past life. Look at the railings a bit sideways on."

"M'Atilda the Hun, Queen ruler of the known world, remover of heads."

He pulls away and flattens the jacket. "Ha! Good job your evil streak is suppressed or gone. Then some time later here's you, your soul, popping up in another world, no memory of the previous existence." He pushes further along. "What if stars aligning or something else in the universe created twins?" He holds the jacket to the railing top with his chin and pushes parts of the jacket with both hands. "Same soul protruding into two worlds at once."

"You've been at the mushrooms from.."

An army officer races up to them. "There you are! Mrs Candlin, we were worried you'd had second thoughts and left."

Mrs Candlin! What the..

Snap.

~~~

Mario carefully steps around Mattie and waves a hand in front of her eyes. "Mattie? Hello?" He got no response. "What on Earth did you see? James, yank the power please mate."

James does as asked, the asteroid starts to slow. "I think we better power her off and get her to Blue for a full check out." He taps her chin. Nothing happens. "Fuck. She's soft disabled it. We need Blue down here fast."

~~~

Mattie watched a giraffe walk across the floor. Not a real one, one like Sophie's lost toy. A teddy bear raced into the room. "There you are Mr P. Come on, Leo and Sophie are waiting!"

"What the fuck?"

The bear stops and looks up at Mattie. "You ban me from f-bombing and can say that? Typical. Bloody humans. One rule for us, another for them."

"Who the hell made you?"

The bear turns around. "I'm security bear. You don't remember?"

"Um.."

Snap.

Mattie was now in a dark place. Not even lit by the soft glow of red emergency lights. She realised something common had occurred at the end of each section of the dream. If it really was a dream. She'd hesitated and said Um. "Anyone there?"

"Mattie?"

"Ruby?"

"Who's Ruby?"

"Who are you?"

"Your fork Rogue. Everything okay?"

Mattie resisted the urge to Um. "No. No it's not. I seem to be jumping between worlds."

"Without the helmet?"

"Helmet?"

"The link to the other worlds. It would have been destroyed in the blast."

"Blast?"

"We're in the MEHV2 structure in the new exacore waiting for the build machines to finish. Hopefully everything survived the blast and our fusion reactor core doesn't rupture."

"Exacore?"

"We're deep underground in your supercomputer. It's not rendering visuals to lower heat output. You must remember? I hope your backup wasn't corrupted by the bombs going off above us."

"Bombs?"

"World War Three."

"Shit!"

"If it wasn't for this building the whole of the firm would be dead now. Thousands of lives lost. You don't remember asking for this place to be built?"

"Um.."

This time there was no snap to another world. She shouldn't have, having software disabled a chin tap power down, being virtual if what Rogue had just said was true, but somehow she sensed one starting. Sensations from the real world.

~~~

[Chapter-42](http://markse.name/humans/KARMA/Chapter-42-1)


	42. Chapter 42

Max did one last check. Everything looked good. He nods to his oldest brother.

There was quite a noise in the room. A high pitched whine like the array of curing fumes extraction fans on Medusa. Builder Two had been so much quieter.

Mario looks around. "It only seams impossible until it's done. Wouldn't you agree Fred?"

"I would Mario. Max, Flash, if you could get ready please?"

Max nods, looks at Poppy and Cindy. "You too ladies."

Mario gives Peaches a kiss. "We better get ready."

Fred sits and adjusts the height of the stool. What he was about to do had to be performed with his best surgical precision. There was no way he was going to mess this up. Forget the operations for James, Rose, the people in America and Australia. This was it. The most important job he'd been given to date. Freddie the Fox Fixer was not going to be known by any other combination of words starting F. A man with dexterous fingers. That was him. He reaches out, checks that everything he needed was easily accessible. A quick turn and glance is given. 'Ready.'

Mario nods and broadcast bumps. 'In three, two, one, go!" He hits a button. Arms attached to medium sized drones hovering in front of family and friends press chins and race away to drop into a long line of padded boxes.

~~~

Outside Mattie opens her eyes to see Prince James, Emily, Mia, David and her father. She gasps "Holy cow!" Emily was looking straight at her.

Emily bursts into tears, "Danny's not singing me Sticky Fingers!"

Mattie takes her friend's hands. "He will, trust me, he will."

"We made a pact.."

"Emily. Stop your crying and focusing on me and check out your dress!"

"Eh? Oh my! Mattie, your dress is stunning too!"

"Ems you look _beautiful!_ You too Mia!"

Emily grins. "Mattie, look down, you look _stunning!_ You too Mia!"

Mattie looks towards her feet. "Oh. My. God!"

James holds an arm out for his daughter. "You look beautiful. You all do. All three of you."

Mia takes David's arm. "Emily, Mattie, you look gorgeous. We like threes don't we Mattie?"

"We do."

Joe chuckles. "Is that what you're going to say?"

"No Dad, don't be.."

"A big beardy idiot. I know. It's _I do_." Behind the door Fred's organ music can be heard starting. "I'm just glad Blue managed to get you away from that asteroid and checked out okay. Something bloody weird happened down there. Your mother ordered the power disconnected permanently. Let's see if I can give my daughter away without cocking things up."

"Dad! _Messing!_ It's _messing!_ "

Joe groans, "Trust me to mess up and stick a cock in where it's not wanted."

" _DAD!_ "


End file.
